Given the many cheap airplane tickets and cheap vacation packages to Mexico, it is not surprising that Mexico continued to be the most visited country in the world for Americans traveling abroad in 2011.
One third of the 58 million Americans who traveled outside the U.S. last year visited Mexico. The trend in American visitors to Mexico is unclear since the U.S. government changed its methodology for counting its citizens’ international travel in 2010. This change has made direct year to year comparisons impossible.
The U.S. Commerce Department recommends that industry analysts focus on the final six months of that year to get a sense of travel trends because the government methodology for tracking visitors changed in mid 2010.
By comparing the last half of 2010 to the back half of 2011, total overseas travel was flat, with a 3 percent drop in travel to Canada and Mexico offset by a 3 percent increase to other overseas markets.
Interestingly, while U.S. citizen travel to Mexico fell 3 percent in the last six months of 2011, arrivals by air rose by 1 percent. Travel to Canada from the U.S. fell 2 percent in the second half of the year while air travel remained constant.
Regarding other overseas markets, American travel to Europe rose by 3 percent in the back half of last year, while travel to Asia and the Middle East increased by 5 percent and 7 percent respectively.
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