Travel Reference
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TABLE 1.3 World's Top Ten Tourism Destinations by Arrivals, 2009
INTERNATIONAL TOURIST ARRIVALS
(MILLION)
% Change
2008
a
Rank
Country
2009
09/08
1
France
74.2
79.2
6.3
2
United States
54.9
57.9
5.3
3
Spain
52.2
57.2
8.7
4
China
50.9
53.0
4.1
5
Italy
43.2
42.7
1.2
6
United Kingdom
28.0
30.1
7.0
7
Turkey
25.5
25.0
2.0
8
Germany
24.2
24.9
2.7
9
Malaysia
23.6
22.1
7.2
10
Mexico
21.5
22.6
5.2
a
Data as collected in UNWTO database April 2010.
Source: United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).
Top Ten
The world
s top ten tourism destinations are shown in Table 1.3. France ranks number one in tourism
arrivals, with 74.2 million, followed by the United States, Spain, China, and Italy. These
five leading
destinations account for 31.3 percent of the world volume of tourism
flows. The top ten countries
account for about 45.3 percent of the
flows. Although this represents a heavy geographical concentration,
the trend is toward a gradual diversi
cation with the emergence of new destinations in the Asia
'
Paci
c
regions. China has moved to fourth place and Malaysia to ninth. Turkey has moved to seventh place.
A similar concentration pattern emerges if countries are classi
ed according to their tourism
receipts. Table 1.4 shows the rank of countries by international tourism receipts, with the United
States leading, followed by Spain, France, Italy, China, Germany, United Kingdom, Australia, Turkey,
and Austria. In terms of receipts, the United States bene
ts from attracting a greater share of higher-
spending, longer-staying, long-haul tourists than its European competitors, which rely more on short-
haul tourism. For world tourism statistics, a visit to the United Nations World Tourism Organization
-
'
s
Web site is a must:
unwto.org/en.
Be alert to the fact that most tourism data go through a series of changes;
first, preliminary
data are released allowing an early look at trends, then additional data become available
improving the database, and revisions are made. Revision is a typical process for improving
and reporting data. Make it a rule to always go to thesourcetogetthelatestdatafortourism
planning purposes.
Canada
Canada was the world
s
fifteenth most popular tourism destination in 2009, with 15.8 million
international visitors according to the UNWTO. In receipts, Canada ranked sixteenth with $13.6 billion.
Results from Canada National Tourism Indicators (NTI) show that tourism spending in Canada
decreased 2.0 percent in real terms in 2009, as spending by international visitors fell to its lowest level
in 15 years. As a result, the domestic share of tourism spending increased for a
fifth consecutive year to
80 percent from 70 percent in 2004.
'
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