TRAVEL INSIGHTS Top-trending summer travel destinations for North Americans

Top Trending Destinations

Looking beyond growth in travel to Rio—which was skewed by the summer 2016 spike in travel—North American travelers increased their preferred destinations in a very global nature, with European, South American and Southeast Asian locales all making the list for highest growth in inbound travelers, according to Visa International Travel (VISIT), a proprietary Visa data source.

Growth in North American travel to Latin American destinations was especially strong. Colombian cities have gained in popularity again, possibly in response to the cessation of armed conflict last year.

1. Rio de Janeiro , Brazil

2. Buenos Aires, Argentina

3. Aburra Valley, Colombia

4. Salerno, Italy

5. Lisbon, Portugal

6. Tulum, Mexico

7. Krabi, Thailand

8. Cartagena, Colombia

9. Naples, Italy

10. Chiang Mai, Thailand

* The list of top trending destinations is based on summer 2016 North American travel.
Sources: Visa Business and Economic Insights; VISIT database; Haver Analytics.

Methodology 


Visa International Travel (VISIT) database is a proprietary model that combines Visa's cardholder data with publicly-available cross-border arrival statistics. The database provides a comprehensive view into high-frequency cross-border travel flows, currently encompassing the top 82 origin and destination countries,** which collectively account for more than 80 percent of global travel.

VISIT combines unique counts of Visa cardholders that register a face-to-face transaction at a merchant outside their home country in a given calendar month with other transaction data such as average spend per cardholder, card usage patterns at lodging merchants and others. Visa uses this data to econometrically model official arrival statistics compiled by various government sources and to generate estimates that fill in the large gaps existing in the cross-border travel data.

** Based on information from the United Nations.

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