International travel to US drops for first time since 2009

The number of international visitors to the United States has dropped for the first time since 2009, as did their spending, the US Department of Commerce said.

In 2016, 75.6 million international travelers ventured stateside, a two percent drop from the previous year. Their spending also fell by one percent to $244.7 billion.

The figures account for people journeying to the US for business, medical, education and leisure reasons.

Travel and tourism however remained the largest services export out of the US, making up 33 percent of services exports and 11 percent overall.

According to the department, preliminary data in 2017 has shown a rise in the number of visitors.