New TransAtlantic US Visitation Numbers for January 2009 - Not Pretty

We all know that the numbers for January were bad. Now we can see some detail according to the US TIA. Just looking at Europe inbound visitors declined from the 27 Member countries of the EC significantly. The biggest drop was from the UK in terms of total numbers. markets with over 20% drops were:

UK, Ireland and Sweden. Interestingly all these national airlines are suffering more than their fellow Europeans.

Here are some highlights:

• U.S. visitation from the 27 European Union countries declined 11 percent in January 2009. At the same time, arrivals from Western Europe, 568 thousand visitors, were down 12 percent and accounted for 37 percent of overseas arrivals.
o In January 2009, arrivals from the United Kingdom were down 20 percent. Visitors from the United Kingdom accounted for 35 percent of all Western European arrivals.
o In January 2009, German arrivals decreased 10 percent (the previous 20 months posted consecutive increases) and French arrivals declined three percent (the previous 27 months posted consecutive increases). At the same time, Italian arrivals were up six percent.
o Also in January 2009, visitation from the Netherlands decreased 14 percent, visitors from Spain declined five percent (the previous 33 months posted consecutive increases), and >arrivals from Ireland dropped 21 percent. For the month, arrivals from Sweden were down 11 percent (the previous 27 months posted consecutive increases) and arrivals from Switzerland were down two percent (the previous 33 months posted consecutive increases).