Americans plan overseas travel despite weak dollar

Expedia USA

From Car Rentals by Samantha Williams

The weakness of the U.S. dollar against major world currencies doesn’t seem to be deterring Americans from traveling abroad this year, although, according to a new Visa Inc. survey, they may be heading for destinations that are somewhat closer to home.

Two-thirds of those who responded indicated that they were at least as willing to travel as they were last year, if not more so; and half of the respondents said that they would probably travel abroad during the coming year. Of the latter group, two-thirds of them noted that they were considering destinations closer to the U.S. than they had in the past.

Visa conducted the survey of 1,000 card holders in the middle of May. Those car members chosen for the survey had traveled abroad at some point during the last three years. The survey was conducted by phone, and was not limited to those who were Visa card holders.

The most popular international destination for U.S. travelers was Canada, with Mexico ranking a close second. The other top destinations included Britain, France, Italy, the Bahamas and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The rankings for 2008 are quite similar to last year’s when data was taken from Visa card holder spending rather than a survey. Canada topped the list of leading destinations in 2007 with $2.9 billion in Visa card spending, followed by Mexico, with $1.7 billion.

“While travel close to home remains strong, what’s interesting [is that] travel destinations like Western Europe and the Caribbean are still popular,” commented Paul Wilke, a spokesman for Visa.

For the first quarter of 2008, U.S. travelers spent $3.4 billion using the Visa card on visits to the top 25 destinations abroad, compared with $15 billion for all of 2007.