U.S. citizens’ outbound travel from the USA to international destinations fell by 66.4% in 2020.

​The United States Government’s Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration’s National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO) recently released the figures for U.S. citizens outbound travel from the USA to International Regions for calendar year 2020.
In March of 2020, the US Federal Government began to strongly discourage its residents from traveling overseas in an effort to slow down the rate of infections spread by returning residents (and from non-resident travelers visiting from overseas) while, at the same time, many countries outside the USA closed their borders to incoming tourists. These restrictions began to be slowly relaxed commencing in late June 2020.

The numbers for air traffic both to and from all international regions (on US and foreign flagged carriers) are reported to the NTTO by means of the “U.S. International Air Travel Statistics Report”. For more details of this survey go to https://www.trade.gov/us-international-air-travel-statistics-i-92-data

As can be seen: -

• The overall number of trips taken by US citizens to international destinations decreased by 66.4% in 2020 compared to the same 12 months of 2019, falling from 99.7 million trips in 2019 to 33.5 million trips in 2019.
• The largest percentage decline was in trips by both land and by air to Canada which fell by 87.1%, from 15.0 million trips in 2019 to 1.9 million in 2020.
• Trips to Europe decreased by 86.4%, from 19.0 million in 2019 to 2.6 million in 2020. 
• The number of trips taken to Mexico by air fell by 50.6%, from 10.2 million trips in 2019 to 5.0 million trips in 2020 as Mexico was able to increase its share of such overseas trips consequent upon less rigorous restrictions on entry to Mexico. The share of all trips grew from 10.2% in 2019 to 15.0% in 2020.
• The number of trips taken to the Caribbean decreased by 66.9%, falling from 9.4 million trips in 2019, to 3.1 million trips in 2020. Interestingly the share of trips taken to the Caribbean fell only slightly from 9.4% in 2019 to 9.2% in 2020.
• Please note the NTTO’s definition of the Caribbean does not include Puerto Rico or the United States Virgin Islands as, for the purposes of the study, they are deemed to be US territories and the focus of the system (APIS) is non-stop air traffic (segmented here for U.S. citizens) to foreign countries.  

The NTTO defines the Caribbean as including the following countries: -
Included in Caribbean for APIS:
 Anguilla
 Antigua/Barbuda
 Aruba
 The Bahamas
 Barbados
 Bermuda
 British Virgin Islands.
 Cuba
 Dominica
 Dominican Republic
 Grand Cayman (Cayman Islands)
 Grenada
 Guadeloupe
 Haiti
 Jamaica
 Martinique
 Netherlands Antilles (including Bonaire, Curacao and Sint Maarten)
 St Kitts/Nevis
 St Lucia
 St. Vincent
 Trinidad/Tobago
 Turks/Caicos

Travel by US Residents to the Caribbean by Month 2020.

​Total Travel by US Residents Overseas by Month 2020.

Caribbean share of US Residents' International Travel 2020