A new survey of over 10,000 hotel reservations conducted by Booking.com, an Amsterdam-based international online hotel reservation service that is part of priceline.com shows that the number one source country for incoming tourists into the US is France. The Dutch company generated a top twenty list of countries as follows:
#1 France #11 Switzerland
#2 Italy #12 Belgium
#3 Spain #13 Sweden
#4 Netherlands #14 Ireland
#5 United Kingdom #15 Australia
#6 Germany #16 Denmark
#7 Brazil #17 Venezuela
#8 Canada #18 Israel
#9 Japan #19 China
#10 Mexico #20 Austria
While in the US, French tourists “favored New York, San Francisco, Miami Beach, Los Angeles and Boston for their summer trips”.
While that is welcome news for the US tourism industry, the Euro is showing signs of receding from its commanding heights lately as the dollar has strengthened. What has kept US tourism robust, particularly in gateway cities has been the weak dollar. A strengthening dollar that is not indicative of US economic growth but European decline does not portend well for the hotel industry.