Border Bottlenecks Widen Travel’s Divide

International travelers spent $18 billion on travel to, and within the U.S. in July., down by $1.5 billion from its pre-pandemic level, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office’s latest data. Spending on strictly goods and services like recreation, lodging and food totaled $9.7 billion in July 2023.

In just the past few days, there have been two key moves that ease restrictions for travel from China to the U.S. Tourism officials have been clear that the lifting of these restrictions is critical to a full recovery –though key hurdles remain. On Thursday, China lifted pandemic-era group tour restrictions for the U.S. and other key markets. Before the lift, Chinese travel agencies were banned from selling outbound group or package travel to the U.S.

International inbound travel to the U.S. is projected to be at 63 percent and 75 percent of its pre-pandemic volume in 2022 and 2023, respectively, according to the U.S. Travel Association’s biannual forecast. At this rate, international travel won’t reach pre-pandemic levels until 2025.

The U.S. Travel Association has launched a website to highlight the negative impact of long visitor visa interview wait times—which now exceed an average of 400 days—is having on global travelers and U.S. businesses. Called USVisaDelays.com, the website lists stories of those affected, loss in industry spending, visitor wait times, impacted markets and a policy fact sheet. 

International inbound visitors spent more than $15.8 billion on travel to, and tourism-related activities within, the United States in October, making it the highest monthly level of spending since Covid struck in February 2020, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office. 

Global average wait times for U.S. visitor visas dropped below 150 days in January for the first time since 2021, according to the U.S. Travel Association. They still, however, remain higher than 400 days for India, Brazil, Mexico and top inbound visa-requiring markets (excluding China).

The number of international visitors to the U.S. reached 4.6 million in November, up 61 percent year over year, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office. November’s volume represented 76 percent of pre-pandemic November 2019’s.

International inbound travelers spent nearly $163 billion on U.S. travel and tourism-related goods and services in 2022, up 96 percent from 2021, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office’s latest monthly data. On average, international travelers spent more than $445 million a day in 2022.

The U.S. will receive 62.8 million international visitors in 2023, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office. That’s a 21.2 percent rise from 51.8 million in 2022, but it’s still below its 2019 level of 79.4 million.

American embassies are working around the clock to bring down the amount of time international travelers have to wait to get a visitor visa interview in order to travel to the U.S., according to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Visa Services Julie Stufft. The global median wait time for a B-1 or B-2 visa, also known as a visitor visa, has been reduced from 17 weeks in June to five weeks now. 

The U.S. hosted 51 million international visitors in 2022, amounting to 64 percent of its 2019 volume, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office’s latest data. Outbound travel from the U.S. totaled 80.8 million, down 19 percent from its pre-pandemic volume.

Americans traveling abroad spent over $15.8 billion on travel to, and tourism-related activities within, other countries in January, more than any single month prior to the pandemic, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office.