[OC] Monthly Arrivals 2000 to May 2025 (USA)

[u/orangeswim]

So someone posted about travel flying data in the US for 3 years (2023-2025) and that post's OP and other commenters were trying to understand if we are getting less visitors. That original post seemed to show that some places were affected but overall inconclusive. https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1mw11pe/oc_nonus_citizens_flying_to_the_us_from_2023mid/ There was a request if more data was available.

The data above is all visitors to USA (land and sea) based on country of residence, data from https://www.trade.gov/i-94-arrivals-program and graphed via excel. With this longer timeline, I believe this trend is showing a decline or slowdown in foreign visitors. Shown in the graph the effect of the pandemic on travel and the recovery. Added in the graph is a 12 month moving average trendline.

The current messaging from the administration is definitely not a welcoming vibe for travelers. Together with increasing prices, problems at Customs/Immigration and political uncertainty globally, it can definitely put a chilling effect on travel.

Visitors from Mexico is +13.9% year over year, from Canada is -16.8% and from overseas is -0.8%. (This statistic is from the linked page). One might ask, its such a small change from last year, why are people making a big fuss? Well, businesses expect year over year increases in profits to keep up with inflation.

Let's combine this with the income information below.
Data from https://www.trade.gov/survey-international-air-travelers-siat shows that:
The median annual household income of air travelers from Mexico in 2024 is $35.9k ($68.5k mean).
The median annual household income of air travelers from Canada in 2024 is $105.4k ($127.1k mean).
The median annual household income of land travelers from Mexico in 2024 is $21.3k ($46.9k mean).
The median annual household income of land travelers from Canada in 2024 is $78.5k ($91.8k mean).
The median annual household income of travelers from overseas in 2024 is $63.1k ($88.3k mean).

What we can infer from the household income from above is that Canadian travelers have more spending power when they are travelling to the USA compared to Mexican travelers. So while we have an increase in travel from Mexico, the decrease in Canadian travelers have a larger economic impact. There is a lot of good data published from trade.gov and someone can run a deeper analysis in the future on which states may be more impacted based on visitor data.

I've heard of reporting from Florida where their tourism heavily relies on Canadian travel during the winter months are expecting a rough time next season. This last season, it was likely too late for many to cancel plans. I have personal experience of friends and family refusing or delaying travel from Canada because of the current political climate.

[u/LegendaryTJC]

This just goes to February 2025. The graph only has one datapoint after the start of 2025. May would be almost half the year. The most interesting part is missing!

Out of interest, when are figures for June and July expected?

[u/PostsNDPStuff → u/LegendaryTJC]

I came here looking for the answer to that question

[u/WannaLernEverything → u/LegendaryTJC]

Comments below identified that the graph is 3-4 months ahead of the covid dropoff and Operation Streamline (2005), i.e. correction should shift the data to the right 3-4 months. The data may already be there for q2 2025.

[u/Exatex]

What happend 2005 with Mexicans?

[u/railwayed → u/Exatex]

i was interested too, so google and it appears that the US implemented Operation Streamline in 2005 to enforce illegal crossing. My guess is that people were going back and forth seasonally prior to this through illegal crossings and many were forced to go through legal crossings because of operation streamline

[u/metalpig0 → u/Exatex]

NINJA Loans

[u/AuntRhubarb]

You're getting a lot of nit-picking, but a very good piece of graphing. Clear and dramatic.

My nit: Just start the title with Air Passenger Arrivals.

[u/orangeswim → u/AuntRhubarb]

It's not just air travel. There is land travel from Canada and Mexico. I would encourage others to dig into the actual data

[u/Letmeaddtothis → u/orangeswim]

Canadians don’t need I-94 for short visits.

[u/tswaters → u/Letmeaddtothis]

I've been to the states maybe 5 times during the course of this graph for vacation (both via ferry & air) and have never needed an i-94, first I've heard of it. I don't think I'm in this dataset, but confirm I won't be going to the USA anytime soon

[u/AuntRhubarb → u/orangeswim]

Oh, sorry. I guess that made my point, the title wasn't clear.

[u/Coomb]

You have some kind of indexing error here because the precipitous drop due to covid should be in March 2020 not January 2020.

[u/orangeswim → u/Coomb]

Let me double check tonight. Possible the dates got misaligned. But the data as a whole should still show a trend 

[u/orangeswim]

The data above is all visitors to USA (land and sea) based on country of residence, data from https://www.trade.gov/i-94-arrivals-program and graphed via excel. Additional information in post from https://www.trade.gov/survey-international-air-travelers-siat
Direct source: https://www.trade.gov//sites/default/files/2024-06/Monthly%20Arrivals%202000%20to%20Present%20%E2%80%93%20Country%20of%20Residence%20%28COR%29_1.xlsx

[u/Aftermathe]

Wait are you attributing a policy shift to explain the entirety of the post-COVID shift when you only have two months of data after the policy shift? Lol.

[u/matmyob]

Nice. Thank you for being explicit about which country this refers to (sometimes people forget).

I'm interested that during the pandemic the data shows a masive drop in Dec 2019/ Jan 2020. Does that mean there is something strange going on with the times reported in the underlying data by trade.gov? I would have expected that drop 4-5 months later.

[u/Rarewear_fan]

Dang, what happened in 2020??

[u/crimxona → u/Rarewear_fan]

Can't tell if sarcasm. Covid??

[u/mybreakfastiscold → u/Rarewear_fan]

Its difficult for me to think that the arrivals abruptly ended in January of that year, while international travel was still widely available well into March. Am I misremembering the early days? I thought travel bans/advisories didn’t start becoming a widespread thing until February

[u/poukai → u/mybreakfastiscold]

I looked at the background data, and the "Total all countries" numbers doesn't drop off a cliff until march-april that year.

[u/mikecws91]

This is hard to read by month because of the spike every year in April/May. Might be better by year, or as a 12-month rolling average.

[u/bananatoastie]

This is about to fall off a cliff

[u/Brewe → u/bananatoastie]

It already has, the data here is just 6 months outdated

[u/Isosorbide]

Very interesting graph. Why did arrivals from Mexico jump in mid 2004?

[u/mybreakfastiscold → u/Isosorbide]

OBAMA (/s)

[u/CrabappledCheeks]

why do they peak in the middle each year ?

[u/readitredditgoner]

Even the first Trump presidency shows a leveling off of the 15 year growth trend. Will be very interesting once this summer's data is included.

[u/sluefootstu]

Just want to say I fucking love Canada and Canadians and I hope they forgive us some day.