Most popular country for tourism

The most popular destination for international tourism is France, which saw 89.4 million arrivals in 2018, according to the latest figures published by the United Nations World Tourism Organization. This figure represents international arrivals in that year (prior to the COVID-19 pandemic), and places France ahead of Spain (82.8 million arrivals), the USA (79.7 million) and China (62.9 million).

The figures were published in the UNTWO's World Tourism Barometer (volume 18, issue 7, December 2020), which outlined the devastating effect of the COVID-19 restrictions on travel; an economic loss of over $2 trillion in global GDP was estimated for the year 2020. International tourism in Europe was down 72.7% compared with the previous calendar year, and down 71.9% globally.