Travel spend data from Visa has shown that China knocked the UK out of the top three inbound countries to the US last year, for the first time since 2009.
According to its 2012 Travel Snapshot, released this week, spending by visitors from China grew a massive 30% compared to 2011.
Another big mover was Argentina, which made the list of top 15 inbound spending countries in the US, increasing travel spend by an impressive 50.5% compared to 2011.
In 2012, international travelers spent a total of $42.6B on tourism-related purchases on their Visa accounts in the US, an almost 6.4% increase compared to 2011.
Visa said the positive upswing was not as high as the 17% recorded between 2010 and 2011.
The coastal states of Florida (+10%), California (+7%) and New York (+5%) remained favorite destinations for international travelers, representing more than half of all inbound tourism revenue in 2012.
But America’s Dairyland, Wisconsin, showed impressive growth with a 31% increase in spend compared to 2011. Hawaii (+14%), Washington (+12%), Texas (+7%) and Nevada (+6%) followed close behind in terms of total dollar volume spent on Visa accounts.
The top 10 inbound markets were
Canada +4%
Brazil +6%
China +30%
UK +2%
Mexico +7%
Japan +6%
Australia -4%
France -3%
Puerto Rico +10%
Germany +3%
Meanwhile, American Visa account holders increased spending overseas by 6% to $34.8B in 2012.
While many of the top travel destinations remained the same, Japan proved to be a major destination of choice, with increased tourism spending of 17%.
The top 10 outbounds markets were
Mexico +17%
Canada -1%
UK +4%
Italy -2%
France +5%
Germany +4%
Puerto Rico +6%
China +3%
Japan +17%
Spain –
