Stats: Domestic Travel Up, Inbound Travel Down in September

Domestic travel continued its successful run in September, but international inbound travel to the United States remained a trouble spot, according to the latest Travel Trends Index (TTI) from the U.S. Travel Association. According to the TTI, travel to and within the United States grew 2.2 percent year-over-year that month, marking the industry’s 117th straight month of growth, while international inbound travel contracted 0.4 percent. 

The domestic travel segment was buoyed by growth in domestic leisure travel, which rose 3 percent year-over-year in September, according to the TTI. At the same time, while vacation intentions remain elevated, there may be trouble ahead for both the business and leisure sectors of domestic travel as forward-looking bookings and search data indicate uncertainty on the horizon, according to the report. The Leading Travel Index (LTI), the predictive component of the TTI, projects domestic travel growth will slow to 1.4 percent in the coming six months.

The LTI also predicts that inbound travel volume will decline 0.6 percent over the next six months as prolonged trade tensions and the high value of the dollar continue to weigh on demand for travel to the United States, the U.S. Travel Association said. 

The TTI is prepared for the U.S. Travel Association by the research firm Oxford Economics. The TTI is based on public- and private-sector source data which are subject to revision by the source agency. The TTI draws from: advance search and bookings data from ADARA and nSight; airline bookings data from the Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC); IATA, OAG and other tabulations of international inbound travel to the U.S.; and hotel room demand data from STR.

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