U.S. citizens’ outbound travel from the USA to the Caribbean fell by 6.8% in September.

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 September 2019 as well as the first nine months of 2019.

While overall travel by US citizens to international regions was up 5.5% in September travel by US citizens to the Caribbean fell by 6.8% from 451,939 in September 2018 to 421,173 in September of this year, a decline of 30,766 visitors.

This was largely due to a 33.0% drop in travel by residents of the USA to the Dominican Republic in September, which fell by 35,752 in September 2019 compared to September of the previous year as well as a 21.5% drop in stopovers to The Bahamas. With 80% of visitors to The Bahamas coming from the USA this would also have had a negative impact on the overall numbers.

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.
 
September 2019

Number of Trips	2019	% share	2018	% share	% change
Europe	1,976,641	26.0%	1,854,896	25.7%	6.6%
Caribbean	421,173	5.5%	451,939	6.3%	-6.8%
Asia	467,211	6.1%	444,563	6.2%	5.1%
South America	151,351	2.0%	139,333	1.9%	8.6%
Central America	167,824	2.2%	156,574	2.2%	7.2%
Oceania	58,211	0.8%	53,774	0.7%	8.3%
Middle East	190,942	2.5%	164,429	2.3%	16.1%
Africa	38,434	0.5%	32,450	0.5%	18.4%
Mexico (Air)	490,925	6.5%	495,518	6.9%	-0.9%
Mexico (Other)	2,266,083	29.8%	2,046,694	28.4%	10.7%
Canada	1,373,800	18.1%	1,363,666	18.9%	0.7%
Total	7,602,595	100.0%	7,203,836	100.0%	5.5%

Year to Date September 2019

Number of Trips	2019	% share	2018	% share	% change
Europe	15,085,952	19.9%	14,052,942	19.9%	7.4%
Caribbean	7,332,647	9.7%	6,660,825	9.4%	10.1%
Asia	4,791,592	6.3%	4,567,827	6.5%	4.9%
South America	1,707,076	2.3%	1,513,547	2.1%	12.8%
Central America	2,614,452	3.5%	2,447,606	3.5%	6.8%
Oceania	691,914	0.9%	600,446	0.9%	15.2%
Middle East	1,884,988	2.5%	1,847,338	2.6%	2.0%
Africa	402,525	0.5%	324,314	0.5%	24.1%
Mexico (Air)	7,592,007	10.0%	7,622,040	10.8%	-0.4%
Mexico (Other)	21,523,278	28.4%	19,254,228	27.3%	11.8%
Canada	12,154,437	16.0%	11,693,740	16.6%	3.9%
Total	75,780,868	100.0%	70,584,853	100.0%	7.4%

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 7.4% in the first nine months of 2019 compared to the same nine months of 2018, growing from 70.6 million trips in 2018 to 75.8 million trips in 2019.
• The largest absolute growth was in trips by land to Mexico which grew from 19.2 million trips in 2018 to 21.5 million in 2019. Trips to Europe grew by 1,033,010  visitors (up 7.4%) from 14.0 million trips in 2018 to 15.1 million trips in 2019. Europe’s share of all trips remained steady at 19.9%.
• The number of trips taken to the Caribbean grew by 10.1%, from 6.7 million trips in 2018 to 7.3 million trips in 2019. The share of trips taken to the Caribbean grew from 9.4% in 2018 to 9.7% in 2019.
• The number of trips taken to Mexico by air fell by 0.4%, from 7.622 million trips in 2018 to 7.592 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 by Month 2019

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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 and down 33.0% in September.