UK visitor numbers to the USA are down 16% from 2008 to 2011, with delegates at the Visit USA briefing on Tuesday hearing that more needs to be done to stimulate tourism to the States.
Julie Heizer, acting director of the Office of Travel & Tourism Industries (OTTI), said that there was a 28% drop in UK visitor spending in the US from 2008 compared with 2011, with $12bn spent last year, although it was up from $11.3bn in 2010.
“We need to do more,” said Heizer, adding that the travel trade needs to show consumers that just because they have visited the USA once before, that doesn’t mean they have seen all it has to offer.
Heizer said there has been a shift towards travellers visiting just one destination when they go to the USA, and this was being reflected by tourists being more likely to go to concerts or plays to fill their time while they stayed in a single place, as well as a dip in car rentals.
Bob Schumacher, United Airlines’ managing director of sales for the UK and Ireland, said that while carriers continued to battle with government taxation such as the air passenger duty, together with increasingly small profit margins, United was “cautiously optimistic about where we are headed for 2013”.
Guy Novik, founder and chief executive of USAirtours, urged tourism boards and suppliers to continue working with them by providing them with incentives to continue pushing their products.
“You are going to have to incentivise us to keep your business,” he said. “Don’t assume that the business coming in will keep coming in, as your competitors keep banging on our door to sell their products too.”