The National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO) issues a semi-annual forecast of tourism arrivals to coincide with two important annual travel conferences; the Discover America IPW (International Pow Wow) conference in the spring and the Travel Outlook Forum in October.
The U.S. travel forecast is prepared by staff in the Department of Commerce/National Travel and Tourism Office using economic/demographic/social factors, Commerce historical visitation trends, input from the DOC Global Markets staff abroad, and other numerous and varied sources. The forecast is based on a country-level, bottom-up consensus approach by a four-member forecast team. Each team member develops independent country-level estimates for the top 20 visitor origin markets based on numerous quantitative data and qualitative information. These 20 markets account for 88 percent of total international arrivals. The final estimates are based on consensus among the four team members. The NTTO multi-person, multi-factor approach reflects the lack of a strong statistical relationship (correlation) between total annual traveler volume to the United States from a specific country and any specific piece of quantitative data for that country, such as changes in real gross domestic product or currency exchange rate levels. Because of the multi-factor, multi-staff consensus approach, it is not possible to isolate the impact of any one factor on a country’s traveler volume forecast.
If you have questions related to the forecast, please contact the NTTO staff at: (202) 482-4754.
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