Visitor Arrivals Program (I-94 Form)

Visitor Arrivals Program (I-94 Form)

Program Description

What is it?

The International Visitor Arrivals Program is a core part of the U.S. travel and tourism statistical system. The International Visitor Arrivals Program provides the U.S. government and the public with the official U.S. monthly and final overseas visitor arrivals to the U.S. and limited Mexican and Canadian visitor statistics. Tourism Industries (TI) manages the program in cooperation with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).

The program focuses on collecting and reporting overseas non-resident visitor arrivals to the United States. Most of the programs effort is focused on using the INS I-94 form data, which all U.S. non-citizens must complete to enter the United States.

What information is presented?

All information is processed by residency (world region and country) for the following categories:

Total/YTD arrivals
Month of arrival
Type of visa (business, pleasure, student)
Mode of transportation (air, land, sea)
Age of traveler (7 categories, mean, median)
First intended address (state) in the U.S.
U.S. port of entry (main international ports - air, land, sea)

The Summary of International Travel to the United States report has over 25 tables highlighting the categories above. Customized tables can be developed based on the same categories. TI presents portions of the information throughout many of its summary reports and free publications, as well as in the Survey of International Travelers (In-Flight Survey) In-bound reports.

How is the information collected?

A complex federal and private industry network is in place to collect visitor arrivals. Most of the programs effort is focused on using the INS I-94 form data, which all U.S. non-citizens must complete to enter the United States. Canadian and some Mexican citizens are exempt (see Methodology) from filling out the I-94 form. INS is responsible for collecting and key punching the I-94 forms. TI processes the I-94 forms data results to extrapolate visitor counts to comply as closely as possible with the United Nations tourism definitions. A full explanation is available in the program Methodology.

How this information is Published

Tourism Industries (TI) is responsible for reporting monthly and total international visitation to the United States, which includes all overseas countries, Canada and Mexico. The International Visitor Arrivals Program is the official U.S. source for monthly and final overseas and Mexican (to the interior only) visitor arrivals to the U.S. The program provides both internal and external information related.

TI provides data results in a printed report called the "Summary of International Arrivals to the U.S." The reports are available in a monthly, quarterly, and annual subscription. Each report contains summa ry tables which highlight the visitor to the United States.

Customized reports can also be developed and TI puts portions of the programs data in TI's TInet web site monthly statistics section. The Department of Commerce also uses these vital visitor arrival data internally to help calculate U.S. travel and tourism export figures, trade balance and GDP. These data are also used as the base or "N" for TI's In-Flight Survey Program. Many of TI's summary reports, such as the Abstract are derived from this program.