21 unbelievable statistics about tourism

To mark World Tourism Day, here are some of the biggest head-scratchers in the world of travel.

1. Which is France’s number two tourist town?

Paris is number one, naturellement. But number two isn’t Bordeaux, Nice or Marseille. It’s Lourdes, a town of 15,000 residents that manages to attract six million visitors every year thanks to the apparitions of a peasant girl called Bernadette. It has 270 hotels for you to choose from – only the French capital has more.

2. Only 0.029% of the world’s population have been to Antarctica

You get that rough figure if you divide the number of people who visit Antarctica each year (38,478) by the number of people born each year (131.4m). But even fewer have been to the least visited country on Earth, Tuvalu – just 0.0014% of us.

3. Tourism is booming in the Middle East

Two of the world’s fastest growing tourist destinations for 2017 are places that live not particularly harmoniously next to one another: Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The former has seen a 24.6 per cent increase in visitors, while for the latter’s it’s 25.7 per cent. 

Excluding places that received fewer than 500,000 visitors, Egypt was the fastest growing travel destination last year. This should come as no surprise. Arrivals to the Middle Eastern country fell sharply in 2016, from 9.1m to 5.3m, amid a backdrop of civil unrest and terror attacks. Since then Egypt has experienced a period of relative calm, although flights to Sharm El Sheikh remain grounded. Last year’s figure was 8.1m. Turkey and Tunisia have also responded strongly after security challenges in recent years.

4. But nobody can beat Cambodia

In terms of relative growth, no country has experienced a tourism turnaround quite as spectacular as Cambodia’s. In 1990, just 17,000 travellers visited a country still reeling from the nightmarish rule of the Khmer Rouge, war with Vietnam, and a subsequent 10-year occupation. Fast forward three decades and Cambodia is now a highlight of many trips to south-east Asia. So much so that in 2017, the most recent year for which the UNWTO has comprehensive data, it welcomed 5.6m overseas arrivals – a 32,841 per cent increase. 

5. The biggest hotel on Earth is not in Las Vegas

Of the 50 largest hotels on the planet, in terms of total number of rooms, around half are found in Sin City. But number one, the First World Hotel (which has a staggering 7,351 rooms), is somewhere far more obscure. The Genting Highlands of Malaysia. It will soon lose the record, however. The Abraj Kudai in Mecca, currently under construction, will have 10,000 rooms.  

6. By 2030, one in four tourists will be Chinese

The China Outbound Tourism Research Institute (COTRI) predicts that overseas trips by the country’s residents will increase from last year’s figure of 145m to more than 400m by 2030.

“That means that out of the 600 million additional trips in international tourism forecasted by UNWTO, bringing the total from 1.2 billion in 2017 to 1.8 billion by 2030, almost half of them will originate in China,” it says. The country will account for a quarter of international tourism.

Now consider this: just seven per cent of Chinese citizens – or 99 million people – possess a passport, compared to around 40 per cent of Americans, and 76 per cent of Britons. Clearly the potential for further growth – China’s population is 1.415bn – is staggering.

7. Bicester Village is almost as popular as Buckingham Palace

Among Chinese visitors, that is. Travellers from the world’s most populous country have some other curious destinations on their wishlist. 

Around 150,000 visit Trier every year, for example, making it the most sought-after German destination among Chinese globetrotters. Why? It is the birthplace of Karl Marx, of course. 

Montargis, a small town south of Paris, is also inexplicably popular. That’s because hundreds of young Chinese scholars studied there in the early part of the 20th century, including many future stars of China’s Communist Party. 

8. More Britons visit the Canary Islands each year than Italy

Lying on a hot volcanic rock? It’s better than Rome, Florence, Venice, Tuscany, the Dolomites, the Cinque Terre and the Amalfi Coast rolled into one. That’s according to ONS figures, which show that 2.86m of us go to the Canaries each year, compared with the 2.46m who visit Italy.

9. Shenzhen is very popular

Euromonitor’s latest report on the world’s most visited cities didn’t have too many surprises. Hong Kong, Bangkok, London and Singapore fill the top four spots, in terms of international tourist arrivals, while Dubai, Paris and New York make the top 10. But so too does Shenzhen.

A little under 13 million visited the Chinese city in 2017 - more than went to Rome, Tokyo, Istanbul or Las Vegas. What’s so special about Shenzhen? Well, for one thing, 40 years ago it was a small market town of 30,000 people. Then in 1980 it became China’s first Special Economic Zone.

Now more than 11 million people call it home. Tourists can admire countless skyscrapers, stay in a Four Seasons hotel, and visit the Window of the World theme park, which features 130 models of famous sights such as Mount Rushmore, the Taj Mahal and Angkor Wat.

10. And Macau is bigger than the Big Apple

Another surprising stat from Euromonitor’s latest Global Cities report? Macau, the Asian gambling hub, is the fifth most visited city in the world. It’s more popular than New York. And the whole of India.

11. Inverness is more popular than Bath

With Roman remains, Georgian architecture and Jane Austen connections, surely Bath welcomes more tourists than plucky little Inverness? Not so, according to VisitBritain. London is number one, by a mile (19.06m overnight visitors in 2016; stats for 2017 are not available), followed by Edinburgh (1.69m), Manchester (1.19m) and Birmingham (1.12m).

Bath lags way down in 14th, with 331,000 arrivals, behind not only Inverness (which, we assume, is used by many as a launch pad for jaunts around the Highlands), with 340,000, but also Leeds, Cardiff and Bristol.

12. And Reading trumps Windsor

Both are in Berkshire, but only one can boast the largest inhabited castle on the planet, Britain’s branch of Legoland, and a picturesque riverside racecourse. Yet it is Reading that makes VisitBritain’s top 20 at the expense of Windsor.

13. The Maldives really needs your money

The value of tourism to the Maldivian economy is more than $1bn – or 39.6 per cent of its GDP. No destination is more reliant on tourist dollars.

14. Russia doesn’t

Tourism accounts for less than 1.5 per cent of GDP in Russia, the biggest country on Earth. Because who needs travellers when you have mining?

15. Syria is more reliant on tourism than 140 other countries

Remarkably, Syria (where it accounts for 6.2 per cent of GDP) - despite years of war and unrest - is more reliant on tourism than around 140 other countries. Curious.

16. Tourists outnumber locals by 6,000 to 1 in the Vatican City

The Vatican City attracts around five million tourists each year and has a resident population of just 842. That's almost 6,000 tourists per citizen.

At the other end of the scale, Bangladesh gets just 0.0008 annual tourists for each permanent resident.  

17. Iran has 23 World Heritage Sites

This won’t surprise anyone who has been there – it’s a fascinating place packed with history. Despite being home to 23 World Heritage Sites (the same as the US), however, this Middle Eastern nation welcomed only 4.7 million visitors in 2017 (while the US got 73 million). Alas, having resumed direct flights between London and Tehran, the country’s capital, in 2016, British Airways scrapped the service this month. 

18. Everyone wants to go to Croatia

A comprehensive analysis of Google data by teflSearch found that Croatia features in 2.71 per cent of travel-related searches worldwide, more than any other nation. Yet Croatia is only the 24th most visited country, with 15.6m arrivals in 2017.

Where do you go when you already live in world’s most desirable destination? Somewhere even more idyllic, it would seem. The analysis revealed that the top destination for Croatians is the Maldives.

19. And Aussies are obsessed with Fiji

The same study revealed that Aussies are mad about Fiji, with the little island nation the subject of 16.1 per cent of searches, followed by New Zealand (10.3 per cent) and Thailand (6.5 per cent).

20. Only three countries have seen a fall in tourist arrivals since 1990

Step forward Hungary (-23%), Romania (-18.8%) and Switzerland (-15.9%). It seems the appeals of Budapest, the Carpathians and swanky ski resorts are not what they once were. 

21. English really is the global language

Thanks to a combination of colonialism, mass tourism and invasive Western culture, English really is the global language. According to David Crystal's book English as a Global Language, at least half the population of 45 countries speak it. There are just 13 countries where fewer than 10 per cent of the population speak English, including China, Colombia, Brazil and Russia.