Arrivals to US rise but growth "trending downward"

Arrivals to US rise but growth "trending downward"
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Average growth to the US from Australia is “trending downward” according to newly-released figures with arrivals last year falling short of initial forecasts.

But despite predicting the number of Australians will now break the 1.5 million barrier by 2018, a year later than previous forecasts, the overall picture was “still solidly positive”, the US department of commerce (DoC) said.

Official figures released at Pow Wow yesterday in Las Vegas confirmed that 1.12m Australians travelled across the Pacific in 2012, a rise of 8.1% on 2011.

While it was the 8th consecutive year of record arrivals, the numbers “fell short of the lofty 2011 fall forecast of 12% growth”, the DoC office of travel and tourism said.

In its long term forecasts, Australian arrivals will rise another 8% this year to 1.21m, with further growth in 2014 of 6% to 1.28m.

But for the four years between 2015 and 2018 inclusive, growth will slow to 5%, meaning Australia will break the 1.5m barrier by 2018, 12 months behind original forecasts.

“The moving average is trending downward but still solidly positive,” analysis said. “The USA share [of outbound travel] is stable at 12% or so, perhaps growing the past couple of years”.

It noted that travel from Australia to South East Asia has seen “really strong growth”.

The 2018 estimate figure of 1.56m arrivals represents growth over 2012 of 39%, or 439,000 additional travellers.

Overall international visitor growth to the US in 2012 hit a record 67m, a rise of 4.3m on 2011.

The US Government has set a goal of attracting 100m overseas travellers by 2021.

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