U.S. travel grows year-over-year, lodging and transportation steady growth

Just in time for spring travel, the U.S. Travel Association has shared American travelers want to reconnect, make memories and get outdoors. Here’s some of their research from the past couple of months:

Travel to and within the U.S. grew 3.2 percent year-over-year in January, according to the U.S. Travel Association’s findings. This marks the travel industry's 109th straight month of expansion.

U.S. Travel’s Barometer, a forecasting report based on 30 billion global online lodging searches from 5,000 consumer travel websites, reported 83 percent of U.S. residents searched domestically for lodging in February. The U.S. is the world’s largest travel and tourism industry, representing $1.6 trillion and 7.8 of the nation’s GDP.

According to STR, January showed a 54.8 percent occupancy rate, a daily rate average of $124.39 and revenue per room available at $65.18. According to AAA, gas prices increased by five cents per gallon with a national average of $2.47 in the beginning of March. It’s 20 cents more than it was in February but five cents lower than last year’s prices.

For more U.S. Travel research, visit www.ustravel.org/research.