World’s Top Tourism Destinations

The Pattern of international tourist flows reveals first and foremost a heavy geographical concentration of tourist arrivals. The ten leading destinations, in fact, account for 53 per cent of the world volume of tourism flows. Moreover, the past five years have witnessed a gradual diversification of tourist markets with the emergence of new destinations, especially in the East Asia and the Pacific region, such as Hong Kong. China raised among the top five destinations and Hong Kong gained five positions. The same phenomenon is observed in Central and Eastern Europe where such destinations as Poland and Czech Republic have all chocked up sizeable gains in the world ranking. The Russian Federation raised among the top twenty destinations. France remained on top of all destinations followed by the United States and Spain.

Rank				Country	International Tourist Arrivals (thousands)			% Change	Market Share % of World Total
1990	1994	1995	1996		1990	1995	1996	96/95	1990	1996
1	1	1	1	FRANCE	52,497	60,110	61,500	2.31	11.46	10.39
2	2	2	2	UNITED STATES	39,363	43,385	44,791	3.24	8.59	7.57
3	3	3	3	SPAIN	34,085	39,324	41,295	5.01	7.44	6.98
4	4	4	4	ITALY	26,679	31,052	35,500	14.32	5.82	6.00
12	6	6	5	CHINA	10,484	23,368	26,055	11.50	2.29	4.40
7	7	5	6	UNITED KINGDOM	18,013	24,008	25,800	7.46	3.93	4.36
8	10	8	7	MEXICO	17,176	20,162	21,732	7.79	3.75	3.67
5	5	7	8	HUNGARY	20,510	20,690	20,670	-0.10	4.48	3.49
28	8	9	9	POLAND	3,400	19,200	19,420	1.15	0.74	3.28
10	12	11	10	CANADA	15,209	16,896	17,345	2.66	3.32	2.93
16	11	12	11	CZECH REPUBLIC	7,278	15,500	17,205	11.00	1.59	2.91
6	9	10	12	AUSTRIA	19,011	17,173	16,641	-3.10	4.15	2.81
9	13	13	13	GERMANY	17,045	14,847	15,070	1.50	3.72	2.55
19	16	15	14	HONG KONG	6,581	10,200	11,700	14.71	1.44	1.98
11	14	14	15	SWITZERLAND	13,200	11,500	11,097	-3.50	2.88	1.87
14	17	17	16	PORTUGAL	8,020	9,706	9,900	2.00	1.75	1.67
13	15	16	17	GREECE	8,873	10,130	9,725	-4.00	1.94	1.64
-	23	18	18	RUSSIAN FED.	-	9,262	9,678	4.49	0.00	1.64
24	22	20	19	TURKEY	4,799	7,083	7,935	12.03	1.05	1.34
15	18	19	20	MALAYSIA	7,446	7,469	7,742	3.66	1.62	1.31
				TOTAL 1-20	329,669	411,065	430,801	4.80	71.94	72.79
				WORLD TOTAL	458,278	566,384	591,864	4.50	100.00	100.00