Not good news but not supporting the excoriation of Trump policies that some of the public analysis of previous months might have indicated. The problem with that analysis was the neglect of data basics like leap years and the moveable feast of Easter.
So May provides a clean edge where the worst news is Canadian:
- May air arrivals from Canada excluding US nationals were down by some 12.5%
- a rate of decline which was worsted by the Caribbean countries but with much with smaller traffic flows.
The context is important and there are two elements:
- since Covid arrivals into the USA have failed to match the enthusiasm of US citizens for travel abroad, thus it would have been irrational to have expected super-normal growth
- May arrivals by what the US data collectors are pleased to call aliens are down by 4.8%.
At the total air arrivals level, and again concentrating on non-Americans, the year on year decline is just a fraction under the 5% point mark.
There are bright spots but they are, Brazil excepted, in the moderate growth league:
- Brazil is where the non-American May growth is powered by arrivals on non-American airlines
- the number of returning US citizens was up by 3.3%
- France and Germany were clearly more favoured by US Nationals
- Non-US passport holders arriving from France were up by 4%.
Mexico is rather the opposite of a bright spot:
- total numbers were marginally down
- Mexican arrivals by air excluding those of US citizens are off by 2.7%.
The numbers could not by any measure be described as an exoneration of recent US policy, the clear villain of earlier reporting, but the data lacks the extremities of earlier months. Airlines are reporting demand problems, capacities have been reduced but the American enthusiasm for travel abroad remains undiminished.
There is of course speculation that visitors are being deterred by policy and by how they see that policy being implemented on social media and it is probably the case that news stories showing tourists being arrested might not win many PR plaudits. Canadian reactions, however, are more solidly research based and likely to be more durable.
