Analysis Of National And Regional Travel Trends

The 2020 edition analyses tourism performance and policy trends across 51 OECD countries and partner economies. It highlights the need for coherent and comprehensive approaches to tourism policy making, and the significance of the tourism economy, with data covering domestic, inbound and outbound tourism, enterprises and employment, and internal tourism consumption.

This paper summarizes travel trends in the United States and five regional areas for the period 1970-1995. Travel is summarized at the annual, monthly, weekly, and daily time scales. Data sources for this study included the annual vehicle travel estimates included in the Table VM-2 from Highway Statistics and traffic count data from approximately 5,000 Automatic Traffic Recorder (ATR) sites nationwide. The nation was split into 5 regions, corresponding to the regional breakdown in Traffic Volume Trends. It was found that travel has grown at approximately 3% per year over the past 25 years. For recent years urban travel makes up more than 60% of the total travel in the United States. The urban travel growth rate is slowing while rural growth rate is increasing. This shift in growth rates is also occurring at the regional level. The daily distribution of travel shows that, since 1978, traffic distribution during the day has undergone significant changes. The early morning hours (12 midnight to 4:00 a.m.) have declined as a percentage of the total ADT. The peaks in the morning and in the afternoon are increasing as a percentage of the total and the shoulders are growing into the middle of the day. The share of travel occurring during daylight hours (between 5:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.) has been increasing since 1978, and accounts for over 80% of the travel during the day.

This significant and timely book critically discusses the effects of emerging trends and shifting dynamics on the tourism and hospitality industry at local, regional, national, and international levels in a holistic manner. This book offers a multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary approach and examines emerging topics such as technology and disruptive economies as well as the Covid-19 pandemic that are likely to change the future of the industry, either positively or negatively. The book thus advances the knowledge surrounding emergent controversies pertaining to tourism and hospitality including the growth of alternative business models (e.g., sharing economy business models), travel in light of climate change, and human resource ethics given the increasing adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), data, and algorithms. Offering a platform for the critical discussion of pertinent transformations and, as such, providing theoretical and practical insights, this book will be of great value to destination planners, policymakers, industry practitioners, educators, and upper-level students of tourism and hospitality.