Projections indicate that travel to
California has rebounded significantly.
A report by Dean
Runyan Associates projects that arrivals by air in 2005 will exceed
arrivals in 2000, the record year for the state. There were a
projected 29.8 million domestic air arrivals at California airports
last year, 2.6% higher than 2004 figures.
Visitor spending in
California is expected to reach $88.1 billion in 2005, a hike of
7.6% from the previous year and the largest year-over-year gain
since 2000. It was the third consecutive year of growth.
A report by Smith
Travel Research showed that California lodging occupancies were
strong in 2005. Statewide occupancy averaged 69% during the year,
four points higher than 2004 and nine points above the U.S.
average.
Revenue per available
room averaged $70.65, a jump of more than 10.1% over the previous
year.
In 2004, California
captured a 10.8% marketshare of total U.S. domestic travel and
20.7% of all overseas travel. Spending by international visitors
makes up more than 15% of all travel spending in the state, and
there are indications that international visitor count has
rebounded as well, according to the Dean Runyan report.
Of Californias 8.9
million international visitors, 4.2 million travel from overseas.
Total overseas visitors to California rose 6% in 2004 to 4.2
million.
The top overseas
market is the U.K., which was flat at 693,000 travelers for both
2003 and 2004. Californias second-largest inbound travel market,
Japan, grew by 7% in 2004, to 630,000.
The other three top
overseas visitor markets are Germany (with 275,000 visitors in
2004), South Korea (273,000) and Australia (259,000). The largest
jump was from Australia/New Zealand, with 200,000 visitors in 2003
and 259,000 in 2004.
Mexico and Canada
account for more visitors than all the overseas markets combined;
3.3 million Mexicans traveled to California by car and 409,000
arrived by air; 983,400 Canadians arrived by air and
car.
Another finding by
D.K. Shifflet is that with the exception of New York, the bulk of
Californias visitors come from nearby states.