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25 July 2008
Record Number of Overseas Visitors Coming to United States

By Victoria Colette Reynolds
Special Correspondent

Washington -- Despite increasing airfares due to rising fuel prices, record numbers of international travelers are coming to America.

It's a bargain for people outside the United States to come here. Hotel room rates in New York, for example, are up 11 percent in dollar terms, but only a mere 1.5 percent increase when calculated in euros, according to Bobby Bowers of Smith Travel Research in Hendersonville, Tennessee.

"Once you're here, in terms of staying in a hotel, it's cheap," Bowers said. "Alternatively, for those traveling from the U.K. to Paris, [they] won't find the value [they would] get by going to places like Orlando [Florida] or [Washington] D.C."

"Hotels, attractions, timeshares and visitor bureaus we touch in our day-to-day client-service work would tell you that business growth from overseas travelers has been 'euphoric' over the last five years," said Scott Berman, a hospitality expert at professional services company PricewaterhouseCoopers. "This international inbound has been an absolute economic engine, and without our international inbound tourist, there would be negative growth [in the tourism industry]."

In 2007, the United States welcomed nearly 56 million foreign visitors, 10 percent more than the year before, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Anecdotal evidence says summer 2008 is witnessing an even larger influx of foreign tourists than summer 2007, the strongest summer on record.

Popular destinations include New York; Los Angeles; Miami; San Francisco; Orlando, Florida; Las Vegas; Honolulu; Washington; Chicago; and Boston.

In Los Angeles' Hollywood district, visitors aren't just skipping along the Walk of Fame. They're scrambling to Universal Studios' new iFLY and Simpsons rides, according to Bill Karz, spokesman for LA Inc., the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau.

In Miami, where Spanish is spoken as much as English, there are tourist activities for any size wallet, Berman said.

Visitors are coming in greater numbers from Latin America, Russia and Eastern Europe, especially to Florida. "You're seeing not only Aeroflot, the Russian airline, flying to North America, but also structured tours that move Russian tourists by charter," Berman said. Disney World, near Orlando, is a big draw, along with beach resorts from Palm Beach to Miami.

Typically, tourists from almost every country in Europe flock to New York and Florida, and the Asian market flies to Hawaii and California on the West Coast. But recently, Los Angeles saw an increase in visitors from the United Kingdom and peaks in visitors from Germany and France.

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