The National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO) issues a semi-annual forecast of tourism arrivals to coincide with two important annual travel conferences; the Discover America IPW (International Pow Wow) conference in the spring and the Travel Outlook Forum in October.

The U.S. travel forecast is prepared by staff in the Department of Commerce/National Travel and Tourism Office using economic/demographic/social factors, Commerce historical visitation trends, input from the DOC Global Markets staff abroad, and other numerous and varied sources.

The forecast is based on a country-level, bottom-up consensus approach by a four-member forecast team. Each team member develops independent country-level estimates for the top 20 visitor origin markets based on numerous quantitative data and qualitative information. These 20 markets account for 88% of total international arrivals. The final estimates are based on consensus among the four team members. 

In 2017, around 3.174 million Chinese tourists visited the United States, up by 4% from previous year. The year-on-year growth is expected to plummet by two percentage points this year as the NTTO forecasts that Chinese travelers will make 3.237 million trips to the US in 2018.

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