The rankings change slightly when looking at expenditures made solely by domestic or international travelers in the United States (charts 2 and 3). The top three states where domestic travelers spent their money were California ($63.1 billion), Florida ($41.7 billion) and Texas ($32.3 billion). International travelers spent the most money in Florida ($18.2 billion), followed by California ($15.1 billion) and New York ($10.3 billion).

�These data underscore the powerful economic effect travel and tourism has on each and every state in the nation�no matter the size of that state or whether it had millions or thousands of visitors,� remarked William S. Norman, president and CEO of the Travel Industry Association of America.

Each state also feels the impact of traveler spending through the subsequent creation of thousands of jobs. The top five states in terms of travel-generated employment in 2000, again, the latest data available, were California (931,700 jobs); Florida (801,300 jobs); Texas (566,100 jobs); New York (440,300 jobs); and Nevada (357,700 jobs).

In a state where tourism is the number one industry, such as Florida, job creation can be tremendous. However, tourism does not have to be a state�s largest industry for the impact to be felt. In the state of Michigan, where tourism is the sixth-largest industry, more than 173,000 jobs were directly attributable to the dollars spent by domestic and international travelers. Overall, the travel and tourism industry ranks as the first-, second-, or third-largest employer in 29 of the 50 states.

Data for the Tourism Works for America, 11th Annual Edition 2002 were collected and analyzed from more than 80 expert sources in order to provide reliable, concise and accurate data about the economic, social and cultural impact of the travel and tourism industry.

Travel Industry Association of America
TIA (www.tia.org) is the national, non-profit organization representing all components of the $537 billion travel industry. TIA's mission is to represent the whole of the U.S. travel industry to promote and facilitate increased travel to and within the United States.

Contact:
Cathy Keefe (Manager, Media Relations)
202-408-8422
ckeefe@tia.org , www.tia.org