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 ($58 billion), Florida ($40.6 billion) and Texas ($31.2 billion). International travelers spent the most money in Florida ($13.9 billion), followed by California ($10.2 billion) and New York ($7.5 billion).

�This is evidence of what an economic powerhouse the travel and tourism industry continues to be in the U.S., despite the challenges faced by the industry in the past few years,� remarked William S. Norman, president and CEO of the Travel Industry Association of America. �These data show that travel is a valuable commodity in each and every state in the nation � no matter the size of that state or whether it had millions or thousands of visitors.�

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 2002, again, the latest data available, were California (820,200 jobs); Florida (742,600 jobs); Texas (534,400 jobs); New York (383,300 jobs); and Nevada (336,300 jobs).
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Travel Industry Association of America
TIA (www.tia.org) is the national, non-profit organization representing all components of the $552 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.
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Contact:
Cathy Keefe (Manager, Media Relations)
202-408-2183
ckeefe@tia.org / www.tia.org