U.S. Outbound Travel Up Double In Most Destinations (But Sinking in Mexico)
by Dori Saltzman /U.S. visitors to Barcelona will be up nearly 50% this summer. Photo: Shutterstock / Georgios Tsichlis
It's a message we've been hearing for a while and something U.S. travel advisors are seeing every day: After a quiet couple of years, Americans are more than ready for international travel.
According to Sojern, a travel marketing platform that aggregates and analyzes billions of travel intent signals like hotel and airline booking data, international flight searches are up by 43%, with 30% more U.S. travelers heading to Europe this summer (over last summer) and 60% more heading to Asia Pacific.
In the Caribbean and Mexico, the numbers are not quite as rosy, though as a region, the Caribbean will see growth of about 3%. Mexico, on the other hand, will see 13% fewer visitors this summer.
Within Europe, Americans are flocking to Venice (+46%), Barcelona (+45%), Rome (+42%), Amsterdam (+40%), London (+37%), and Paris, Milan and Reykjavik (all +33%). Surprisingly, the only city in Europe that will see fewer visitors this summer, according to the Sojern data, is Lisbon (-8%).
Considering that most of Asia was closed to U.S. travelers until recently, it's not surprising to see numbers like +2981% for China, +1162% for Hong Kong, and +222% for Japan.
