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The travel and tourism industry-as measured by the real output of goods and services sold directly to visitors-decelerated to 1.7 percent growth in 2017 after increasing 3.2 percent in 2016, according to the most recent statistics from the Travel and Tourism Satellite Account (TTSA) of the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).1 In contrast, the broader economy, as measured by real gross domestic product (GDP), increased 2.3 percent in 2017 after increasing 1.5 percent in 2016. Revised statistics on travel and tourism reflect the incorporation of the annual update of the industry economic accounts, which was released on November 2, 2017.2
Highlights from the TTSA include the following:
* Real output increased in 14 of 24 commodities in 2017. The largest contributors to the increase included traveler accommodations, international passenger air transportation services, and shopping.
* Real output growth slowed to 1.7 percent in 2017 from 3.2 percent in 2016, reflecting downturns in gasoline and food and beverage services spending as well as decelerations in automotive rental and leasing and domestic passenger air transportation services.
* Prices for tourism goods and services increased 1.3 percent in 2017 after decreasing 1.8 percent in 2016. The largest contributor to the increase in 2017 was gasoline, which increased 12.0 percent and contributed 1.03 percentage points to tourism goods and services price growth.
The TTSA is available on the BEA website; see the link "Data Availability."
The remainder of this article includes a discussion of trends in travel and tourism output and prices, tourism value added, and employment.
Trends in Output and Prices
Real output
The leading contributors to the 1.7 percent growth in real travel and tourism output were traveler accommodations, which increased 4.7 percent and contributed 0.92 percentage point to real output growth; international passenger air transportation services, which increased 6.7 percent and contributed 0.34 percentage point; and spending on nondurable consumer commodities, or shopping, which increased 2.8 percent and contributed 0.39 percentage point (table A and chart 1).
The slowdown in real output growth was led by the downturn in gasoline spending, which decreased 8.6 percent in 2017. This decrease followed six years of growth. Other large contributors to the deceleration included food and beverage services, which decreased 1.2 percent after increasing 2.9 percent in 2016, and...