2019 is getting off to a good start for tourism, with international (U.S. and overseas) visits up 3.8% from January 2018.

U.S. visits are up 1.6%, which is consistent with the last few months of 2018. However, January saw some strong growth in overseas visitors, which were up 7.8% overall from last January. This growth was mostly driven by China, which was up 36%, which is higher than most (if not all) months in 2018.

France also performed well, with an increase of 12.5% in visitors over last year, as did Mexico – up 32.8% over last year.

At the same time, Japan and South Korea saw sizeable decreases of 21.4% and 12.4% respectively, followed by Brazil (-7.4%), Germany (-3.7%) and the UK (-2.0%).

While we are encouraged with the overall result to start 2019, we hope to see a turnaround in some of our declining markets as the year progresses.