The Department of Commerce revised its 2017 inbound tourist
numbers on Wednesday, adding 3.6 million international visitors to the total
and reversing what had been reported as 3.1% downturn in arrivals
to an increase of 0.7%.
Revised figures show almost 77 million international
visitors arrived in the U.S. last year. Total arrivals were also revised for
2015 and 2016, adding 3,218 and 540,090, respectively.
"The good news is that in 2017, travel rebounded into
the United States," said Isabel Hill, director of the Commerce Department's
National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO) during a conference call. "And
the even better news is that it continues to grow into 2018."
The NTTO had suspended reporting U.S. inbound visitor data
earlier this year, upon realizing that there were anomalies in records it was
receiving from Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Hill said that the underlying cause of the anomalies has been
corrected. She explained that an investigation into the arrival numbers
revealed an undercount of 4.5 million travelers between 2016 and 2018, because
they were misclassified as U.S. residents due to a programming error at kiosks
used by visitors at some U.S. airports.
NTTO said that the issue was identified after it became
apparent that inbound visitor numbers were not consistent with its other
inbound travel indicators. Hill said that problem has been resolved and that
NTTO can confidently resume publishing its monthly and annual data.
The revised 2015 and 2016 numbers increase the visitor totals
for those years by 0.8% and 1.4%, respectively. With the adjustment of 2016 stats,
arrivals fell 1.8% that year, not 2.4%.
The new NTTO numbers also show that the visitors spent a
record $251.4 billion in 2017, a 2% increase over 2016.
The NTTO's most recent arrival numbers indicate continued
and higher growth, with first-quarter visitor numbers showing an 8.1% increase.
"If you look at the trending, which we're now able to
look at from 2015 to 2018, we begin to see a very positive upward trend,"
Hill said.
Markets with strong increases in 2017 were South Korea
(17.8%), Brazil (11%), Argentina (10%), Ireland (9%) and Canada (4.8%).