As part of its research program, TFI monitors the level of visitation to countries around the world.  TFI also monitors outbound travel from a number of major tourism-generating markets. 

In the chart below TFI provides the change (based on rolling quarters) in outbound travelers from a number of major tourism-generating markets: Japan, USA and the UK.  Also included, using an index constructed by TFI, is the performance of China for the same period.

Note that from the first quarter of 2008 growth in the number of outbound travelers from the USA and UK began to decline, for Japan the decline commenced from late 2006. 

There are three positives to be drawn from the series:

• For the UK the rate of decline has slowed (although this improvement appears to have stalled from October last year).
• The USA and Japan have returned to positive growth (on strong downturns the previous year). 
• China’s rate of growth is recovering from its low of July 2009.

Outbound Travel from Major Tourism-Generation Markets
Change Against Previous Year for Rolling Quarters March 2008 to Nov/Dec 2009

Source: TFI based on data from U.S. Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration, Office of Travel and Tourism Industries; UK International Passenger Survey (IPS), Office for National Statistics; Japan National Tourist Organization.  China is based on an index constructed by TFI based on inbound collections for a number of countries.

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