The leading contributors to the deceleration in the third quarter were “passenger air transportation,” and “recreation and entertainment.” “Passenger air transportation” turned down, decreasing 7.2 percent in the third quarter after increasing 11.1 percent in the second quarter. “Recreation and entertainment” also turned down, decreasing 5.5 percent after increasing 4.1 percent. Partially offsetting these downturns, “traveler accommodations” turned up, increasing 8.3 percent in the third quarter after decreasing 0.9 percent.

Tourism Prices. Overall growth in prices for travel and tourism goods and services decelerated in the third quarter of 2014, increasing 0.6 percent following a 6.6 percent (revised) increase in the second quarter. This is the largest price deceleration since the fourth quarter of 2008. The deceleration was mainly attributable to a downturn in “all other transportation-related commodities,” which includes gasoline and automotive rentals; the industry group decreased 4.7 percent in the third quarter after increasing 8.6 percent in the second quarter.
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Total Tourism-Related Output was $1.5 trillion in the third quarter of 2014. It consisted of $898.4 billion (58 percent) of direct tourism spending and $644.0 billion (42 percent) of indirect tourism-related spending.

Total Tourism-Related Employment was 7.8 million jobs in the third quarter of 2014 and consisted of 5.5 million (71 percent) direct tourism jobs and 2.3 million (29 percent) indirect tourism-related jobs.

Definitions:

Tourism spending. Total tourism-related spending consists of direct tourism output and indirect tourism output. Direct tourism output comprises all domestically produced goods and services purchased by travelers (for example, traveler accommodations and passenger air transportation). Indirect tourism output comprises all output required to support the production of direct tourism output (for example, toiletries for hotel guests and fuel for airplanes).

Tourism employment. Total tourism-related employment consists of direct tourism employment plus indirect tourism employment. Direct tourism employment comprises all jobs where the workers are engaged in the production of direct tourism output (for example, hotel staff and airline pilots). Indirect tourism employment comprises all jobs where the workers are engaged in the production of indirect tourism output (for example, workers producing hotel toiletries and delivering fuel to airlines).

These statistics are from BEA’s Travel and Tourism Satellite Accounts (TTSAs), which are supported by funding from the Office of Travel and Tourism Industries, International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. The current-price statistics of direct tourism output were derived from BEA’s annual TTSAs and from current-price quarterly statistics of personal consumption expenditures from the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPAs). The real statistics of direct tourism output were developed using price indexes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and real quarterly statistics of personal consumption expenditures from the NIPAs. The statistics of direct tourism employment were derived from the annual TTSAs (revised in June 2014) from BEA, the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), and Current Employment Statistics (CES) from BLS.

Quarterly statistics are seasonally adjusted and expressed at annual rates, unless otherwise specified. Percent changes are calculated from unrounded data and annualized. Real values are in chained (2009) dollars. Price indexes are Fisher chain-type measures. Growth in overall U.S. employment is calculated using BLS total nonfarm employment from Current Employment Statistics, www.bls.gov/ces/home.htm#data.

Next release — Travel and Tourism statistics for fourth quarter and annual 2014 will be released on Wednesday, March 18, 2015 at 8:30 A.M. EDT

Media:
Jeannine Aversa
202-606-2649
E-mail inquiries: travelandtourism@bea.gov
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