U.S. Sets New Record: International Travel Exceeds Pre-Pandemic Levels
Based on fresh statistics provided by the U.S. International Trade Administration, an entity that monitors direct flights departing from the United States, a staggering forty million Americans departed from the country.
A rising trend shows that a growing number of Americans are opting out of traditional Mexican beach getaways and opting, instead, to explore the Caribbean. Additionally, there is a gradual increase in the count of individuals journeying to African, Middle Eastern, and South American nations.
The number of travelers in 2023, which reached 40 million, reflects an 8.6% rise compared to the period up to July 2019. This year marked the last year before the global impact of the Covid-19 pandemic led to the shutdown of international travel.
Popular European destinations such as the United Kingdom (which welcomed 3 million Americans in 2023 through July), France (1.5 million), and Germany (1.6 million), which together attracted 11.7 million Americans and 29.1% of all Americans traveling abroad, continued to dominate the U.S. tourism market.
The Caribbean, with its beach islands such as the Bahamas, Antigua and the Cayman Islands, saw a 20.3% jump in travel during the same period, while Mexico, known for its beach resorts of Cancun, Puerto Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas, saw 8.3 million American visitors through July of this year. That’s a 6% increase over the same period in 2019.
Ryan Hymel, CFO of Playa Hotels and Resorts, which operates 13 hotels throughout Mexico, claimed in a recent conference call that travelers are suffering from “destination fatigue” and that the company is seeing a decline in demand in favor of places like Europe and the Caribbean.
Despite the fact that just 2.2 million Americans traveled to the Middle East during that time period, this number still represents a significant increase (46.1%) over the number of Americans visiting the Middle East during the same period in 2021.
Following the pandemic, there was an increase in tourism to countries such as Turkey (560,000 U.S. visitors and an 81.1% increase over 2019), Qatar (494,000 U.S. visitors in 2023 and a 92% increase over 2019), and Israel (442,000 U.S. visitors in 2023 and a 36.2% increase over 2019), which saw a high percentage of religious tourism from Jews and Christians seeking to visit the holy sites of their respective religions.
