France remains top global tourist destination in 2012
PARIS: France kept its position as the world’s top tourist destination in 2012, with 83 million foreign visitors, and continued to host an increasing number of Asian travellers.
“With a new record number of arrivals by foreign tourists… France in 2012 retained its first place in the world,” France’s DGCIS international competitiveness agency said in its annual report on tourism.
“The economic and political problems that are affecting many parts of the world continue to spare the tourism sector,” the report said, noting that the number of global tourists was up four percent in 2012.
In France, Europeans continued to make up the bulk of visitors last year, accounting for more than 83 percent of tourists.
The number of European visitors to France was up 2.1 percent last year, the report said, while the number of Asian tourists grew at a rate of 9.9 percent.
The number of visitors from China alone was up 23.3 percent, it said, though they still represented only 1.4 million visitors.
The country that sent the most tourists to France last year was Germany, with 12.2 million visitors.
The number of tourists from the Americas was however down by 3.2 percent, while the number of African visitors was also down, by 2.5 percent.
The overall tourist spending was up by 6.3 percent last year, to 35.8 billion euros ($46 billion), AFP reports.
The tourism top 10 in 2012 (number of visitors staying over 24 hours):
France: 83 million;
USA: 63.3 million;
Spain: 58.7 million;
China: 58.6 million;
Italy: 46.1 million;
Turkey: 36.7 million;
United Kingdom: 29.2 million;
Germany: 28.4 million;
Malaysia: 24.1 million;
Mexico: 23.4 million.
