Tiny Ireland and Dominican Republican Sending Nearly a Million Visitors Annually: For anyone who read the revised inbound arrivals report recently issued by the U.S. National Travel and Tourism, the rankings contain no surprises—until one goes down the list and comes to the end of the Top 20 Overseas Source Markets.
There, one sees this:
The unusually high numbers for Ireland (est. population 4.8 million) and the Dominican Republic (est. population 10.8 million), which together brought 927 million visitors to the U.S. last year contrast with the 992 million sent by Venezuela (est. population 32.4 million) and Taiwan (est. population 23.6 million), which together have a population of more than three-and-a-half times that of Ireland and the Dominican Republic.
Here are several reasons for the high numbers of the two smaller countries:
—Ireland has pre-clearance facilities for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to pre-clear international passengers heading to the USA. And the Dominican Republican will soon be able to provide the same convenience. Luis Ernesto Camilo, president of the Dominican Republic’s Civil Aviation Board, the pre-authorization system for passengers traveling to the United States from the Punta Cana International Airport in the Dominican Republic will enter the service in early November. Camilo told the news site REPORTUR that the modules where the U.S. officials will work are already being prepared and will be finished soon.
—Both Ireland and the Dominican Republican benefit from their locations, which already make them facilitators of international travel. A little-known fact is that the Punta Cana International Airport is the Caribbean’s second busiest for international traffic—behind only Puerto Rico’s Luis Muñoz Marin Airport in San Juan. Punta Cana already has service from the major U.S. carriers—United, Delta and American—as well as the Panamanian carrier Copa, which has connections through Central and South America.
—In Ireland, officials at Dublin International Airport will shortly begin a formal consultation process on a nearly billion-dollar capacity investment plan which will allow Ireland’s Aer Lingus and all other airline customers at the facility– to continue to grow their business at Dublin Airport. That plan, which includes provision for a 30 percent increase in aircraft parking stands, new boarding gate piers, enlarged immigration and CBP areas, and modifications to the two existing terminals at Dublin Airport, is complementary to its North Runway project.
—Also, low-cost carrier Norwegian is using Dublin’s airport to increase European connections to the U.S. As well, Norwegian has launched some inventive routes that include a service introduce last February that takes travelers on a one-day shopping trip that uses Stewart International Airport —it’s 60 miles north of Manhattan—to take shopper to Woodbury Common, a popular shopping mall within shuttle bus distance of the airport.
Sooner or later, someone was bound to try and quantify just what means “fun” in a destination. The researchers at WalletHub have done it and, in doing so, have declared Las Vegas to be the U.S. destination with the most fun. (A complete list of the Top 100 cities in the U.S. is below.) WalletHub, a personal finance website that, in its travel sector portfolio, rates travel credit cards, compared more than 180 U.S. cities based on 65 key metrics. They range from fitness centers per capita to movie costs to average open hours of breweries.
It has long been known that rest rooms are an important and integral part of group travel. Buses with groups make regular stops at National Park Service visitor centers and highway information or visitor information locations. But so do FIT travelers who are driving an automobile or van.
The move toward building better bathrooms seems to have caught on in recent years. Davison tells us of a facility in the nearby town of Roxburgh that cost $583,000 and included a canopy, living wall and original artwork from Bill and Michelle Clarke totaling $113,000. Now five years old, the bathroom reportedly has delivered an additional $1 million per year in tourist revenues.
Quirkiest Experience – Bowl Plaza, Lucas Kansas. “Bowl Plaza is a public restroom with bling! The restrooms, which took four years to build, are now a major attraction in Lucas, the small town grassroots arts capital of Kansas. The bathroom’s walls are covered inside and out with detailed mosaics created by local residents and artists. The entire building is shaped like a toilet tank. The entrance is designed like a raised toilet lid with benches that represent the curved toilet seat. The sidewalk to the loos flows from a large concrete toilet roll. Bowl Plaza is now very popular with residents and tourists and has its own guest register.”
Following a five-month layoff in which it had suspended the publication of overseas arrivals to the U.S., the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO) issued revised arrivals* figures for 2016 and 2017, confirming what many in the tour and travel industry knew: last year was one in which most key overseas markets recovered from a lethargic 2016 during which inbound traffic from these markets declined due to a number of factors—not the least of which was an extremely strong U.S. dollar vs. most key global currencies. (The table of the top 20 overseas source markets, showing those country markets which had record years in either 2015 or 2017 illustrates how weak 2016 was.) Some notes on the NTTO data release:
The just-released United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has positioned the United States at Number 3 among international tourist destinations, having been overtaken as Number 2 by Spain. The UNWTO had projected such a change in rank nine months ago.
