U.S. citizens’ outbound travel from the USA to the Caribbean fell by 3.4% in October.

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 the month of October 2019 as well as the first ten months of 2019.
While overall travel by US citizens to international regions was up by 10.4% in October travel by US citizens to the Caribbean fell by 3.4% from 537,150 in October 2018 to 519,048 in October of this year, a decline of 18,102 visitors.
This was largely due to a 26.6% drop in travel by residents of the USA to the Dominican Republic in October, which fell by 32,459 in October 2019 compared to October of the previous year.
The NTTO does not include travel by US citizens to either Puerto Rico or the USVI in their total for the Caribbean as both are deemed to be domestic destinations for the purposes of their study.
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US Citizens Outbound Travel : October 2019

Number of Trips	2019	% share	2018	% share	% change
Europe	1,525,251	20.0%	1,424,376	20.6%	7.1%
Caribbean	519,048	6.8%	537,150	7.8%	-3.4%
Asia	564,812	7.4%	556,296	8.0%	1.5%
South America	165,505	2.2%	152,095	2.2%	8.8%
Central America	200,019	2.6%	181,356	2.6%	10.3%
Oceania	66,734	0.9%	65,396	0.9%	2.0%
Middle East	197,548	2.6%	183,827	2.7%	7.5%
Africa	38,025	0.5%	31,875	0.5%	19.3%
Mexico (Air)	676,345	8.9%	653,393	9.4%	3.5%
Mexico (Other)	2,593,999	34.0%	2,099,954	30.4%	23.5%
Canada	1,092,345	14.3%	1,032,192	14.9%	5.8%
Total	7,639,631	100.0%	6,917,910	100.0%	10.4%

​US Citizens Outbound Travel: 2019 YTD October

Number of Trips	2019	% share	2018	% share	% change
Europe	16,611,203	19.9%	15,477,318	20.0%	7.3%
Caribbean	7,851,695	9.4%	7,197,975	9.3%	9.1%
Asia	5,356,404	6.4%	5,124,123	6.6%	4.5%
South America	1,872,581	2.2%	1,665,642	2.1%	12.4%
Central America	2,814,471	3.4%	2,628,962	3.4%	7.1%
Oceania	758,648	0.9%	665,842	0.9%	13.9%
Middle East	2,082,536	2.5%	2,031,165	2.6%	2.5%
Africa	440,550	0.5%	356,189	0.5%	23.7%
Mexico (Air)	8,268,352	9.9%	8,275,433	10.7%	-0.1%
Mexico (Other)	24,117,276	28.9%	21,354,182	27.6%	12.9%
Canada	13,246,782	15.9%	12,725,932	16.4%	4.1%
Total	83,420,498	100.0%	77,502,763	100.0%	7.6%

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”.

As can be seen: -

• The overall number of trips taken by US citizens to international destinations increased by 7.6% in the first ten months of 2019 compared to the same ten months of 2018, growing from 77.5 million trips in 2018 to 83.4 million trips in 2019.
• The largest absolute growth was in trips by land to Mexico which grew from 21.3 million trips in 2018 to 24.1 million in 2019. Trips to Europe grew by 1,133,885  visitors (up 7.3%) from 15.5 million trips in 2018 to 16.6 million trips in 2019. Europe’s share of all trips declined slightly to 19.9%.
• The number of trips taken to the Caribbean grew by 9.1%, from 7.2 million trips in 2018 to 7.8 million trips in 2019. The share of trips taken to the Caribbean grew from 9.3% in 2018 to 9.4% in 2019.
• The number of trips taken to Mexico by air fell by 0.1%, from 8.275 million trips in 2018 to 8.268 million trips in 2019.

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

​US Citizens Travel to the Caribbean 2019

	2019	2018	% change
Jan	742,453	598,896	24.0%
Feb	791,219	673,271	17.5%
Mar	1,006,030	889,631	13.1%
Apr	831,841	722,504	15.1%
May	837,345	725,539	15.4%
Jun	975,104	900,872	8.2%
Jul	974,345	951,631	2.4%
Aug	753,137	746,542	0.9%
Sep	421,173	451,939	-6.8%
Oct	519,048	537,150	-3.4%
YTD	7,851,695	7,197,975	9.1%

​While the Caribbean saw good growth comparing the first six months of 2019 with the same six months of 2018, growth slowed significantly in the third quarter with the onset of the sharp decline in US travel to the Dominican Republic which was down from the US by 24.6% in July, down 24.4% in August, down 33.0% in September and down 26.6% in October.