The number of international tourist arrivals to the selected European destinations increased significantly in 2023 over the previous year, experiencing strong signs of recovery from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and in some cases even surpassing pre-pandemic levels. Overall, Paris and the Île-de-France region recorded the highest figure among the selected destinations in 2023, with around **** million inbound tourist arrivals. London and Istanbul followed in the ranking that year, with roughly **** million and **** million arrivals, respectively. What are the most visited countries by international tourists? Both before and after the health crisis, France was the country with the highest number of inbound tourist arrivals worldwide. In 2023, inbound arrivals to France reached *** million, the highest figure reported by the country to date. Meanwhile, the United States, which ranked third by inbound arrivals that year, was the country with the highest international tourism receipts worldwide. Has inbound tourism recovered from the impact of COVID-19? While the number of international tourist arrivals worldwide grew sharply in 2023 compared to the previous year, it remained approximately ** percent lower than in 2019. Overall, the total contribution of travel and tourism to the global GDP was **** percent below pre-pandemic levels in 2023.
The number of international tourist arrivals in Europe rose significantly in 2023 compared to the previous year across all the most visited destinations in the region. Overall, France was the most visited country by inbound travelers in Europe in 2023. That year, France - which also topped the ranking of the countries with the highest number of international tourist arrivals worldwide - reported *** million international tourist arrivals, the highest figure recorded by the destination to date. Spain, Italy, and Turkey followed on the list in 2023. Europe is the most popular region for inbound tourism Europe is the region with the highest number of inbound tourism arrivals worldwide, with over *** million arrivals in 2023. Comparatively, there were nearly *** million international tourist arrivals in Asia and the Pacific, the second-most visited global region by inbound travelers that year. When breaking down the number of inbound arrivals in Europe by sub-region, Southern and Mediterranean countries reported the highest figures, both before and after the impact of COVID-19. Travel & Tourism Development Index France and Spain, among the most popular travel destinations in Europe in terms of inbound arrivals, were also among the leading countries in the Travel & Tourism Development Index (TTDI). The TTDI index measures factors and policies that support a sustainable and resilient development of travel and tourism worldwide. In 2023, Spain ranked first with a TTDI score of ****, followed by France and Germany.
Florence, the famous Italian city, was the best-rated European city by readers of a U.S. travel magazine in 2024, scoring 90.55 out of 100 points. Funchal, in the Portuguese island of Madeira, ranked second with 89.82 points.
Poles were the most likely to buy airline tickets to European cities on the FRU platform in the summer of 2024. Among them, European capitals were mainly popular.
This statistic shows the number of international overnight visitors in the most popular European city destinations in 2016. London had the largest number of international overnight visitors in 2016 with 19.06 million.
In 2016, London had the second most international overnight visitors. In that same year, London ranked as the third leading city in terms of international visitor spending in the world. In 2016, some 858 thousand international overnight visitors to London came from New York, United States.
In 2023, Russia was the leading inbound travel market for Turkey based on the volume of tourist arrivals, reaching over *** million visitors. Germany and the United Kingdom followed on the list, with approximately *** and *** million arrivals, respectively. One of the most popular destinations in Europe With hundreds of beaches, mountains, nature, and historical sites in various cities, Turkey has plenty of activities to offer to tourists. Consequently, the country attracts millions of visitors every year. In 2023, following Italy, Turkey ranked fourth among the most popular destinations in Europe, having welcomed over ** million travelers. That year, Turkey’s inbound tourism receipts amounted to **** billion U.S. dollars, which placed the country fifth among other European destinations. Inbound tourism in Turkey The country saw a sharp decrease in the number of inbound tourist arrivals in 2020 and 2021 due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. However, from 2022 onwards, the figures caught up with the pre-pandemic levels. In 2023, over ** million international tourists visited Turkey, which was the peak value recorded since 2000. In the same year, the vast majority of foreign travelers arrived in Turkey with the purpose of travel, entertainment, sport, or cultural activities. Furthermore, about *** million foreigners visited their relatives and friends in Turkey.
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Note: updates to this beta layer are currently paused while we sync new versions of the OSM layers for Europe.This feature layer provides access to OpenStreetMap (OSM) tourist attraction point data for Europe, which is updated every 5 minutes with the latest edits. This hosted feature layer view is referencing a hosted feature layer of OSM point (node) data in ArcGIS Online that is updated with minutely diffs from the OSM planet file. This feature layer view includes tourism features defined as a query against the hosted feature layer (i.e. tourism is not blank).In OSM, tourism features are places and things of specific interest to tourists including places to see, places to stay, things and places providing information and support to tourists. These features are identified with an tourism tag. There are hundreds of different tag values used in the OSM database. In this feature layer, unique symbols are used for several of the most popular tourism types, while lesser used types are grouped in an "other" category.Zoom in to large scales (e.g. Cities level or 1:160k scale) to see the tourism features display. You can click on a feature to get the name of the tourism feature. The name of the feature will display by default at very large scales (e.g. Building level of 1:2k scale). Labels can be turned off in your map if you prefer.Create New LayerIf you would like to create a more focused version of this tourism layer displaying just one or two tourism types, you can do that easily! Just add the layer to a map, copy the layer in the content window, add a filter to the new layer (e.g. tourism is ruin), rename the layer as appropriate, and save layer. You can also change the layer symbols or popup if you like.Important Note: if you do create a new layer, it should be provided under the same Terms of Use and include the same Credits as this layer. You can copy and paste the Terms of Use and Credits info below in the new Item page as needed.
In 2015, Dubai was the city with the highest number of tourists staying at least one night per capita. That same year, international overnight visitor spending in Dubai reached 28.5 billion US dollars. The city, which is the largest and most populous city in the United Arab Emirates, was also one of the most expensive holiday destinations in the world in 2018. In 2016, 14.87 million people visited Dubai from abroad.
Europe and Asia: top destinations
According to the source, most of the 20 tourist cities with the highest number of visitor arrivals per capita were Asian or European cities. After Dubai, Amsterdam and Prague were the second and third cities with the greatest number of tourists spending at least one night per capita. With respectively, 2.7 and 2.5 visitors per capita, the two European cities were followed by another one: London. Singapore, ranked fifth with 2.1 visitors per capita, was the first Asian city in the list. Thus, New-York the first North American city of this ranking was 17th. It appears that Europe remains one of the most popular tourist destinations. Asia was also a very attractive destinations for international visitors with Hong-Kong being the leading city destination in 2017.
Focus on tourism in Europe
Since the nineties, the number of international tourist arrivals in Europe keeps increasing. France is the European country with the largest number of international visitors’ arrivals, while Spain and Italy are also two of the leading tourist destinations on the continent. Travel and tourism have an important contribution to GDP in Europe, reaching 781.6 billion US dollar and 2018 and expected to attain 991.4 billion in 2028.
According to a 2024 analysis of 14 European cities to visit during the Christmas markets, Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, was the most budget-friendly destination. The combined cost of a Christmas market's visit in Bratislava, accommodation, and transport totaled an average of roughly 510 British pounds in 2024. Vilnius in Lithuania recorded the second-cheapest deal for a similar experience that year, at just under 511 British pounds.
Younger audiences dominate TikTok, a social video app that is also used extensively by influencers and travel bloggers. In April 2023, ********* was the city in Europe with the most TikTok views, amassing over *** billion views of videos tagged with the city's name. ****** was also extremely popular with TikTok users, totaling over **** billion views in April 2023, making the UK capital one of the most danceable cities in Europe. Other popular European cities tagged on the app were Paris, Istanbul, and Madrid.
According to the European Backpacker Price Index for 2025, Eastern and Central European destinations dominated the ranking of the most affordable cities for backpacking in Europe. In January 2025, the source included Kyiv as the cheapest destination on the list. It then specified that the Ukrainian capital was never a popular destination for backpacking – and it is unlikely that it will welcome many tourists any time soon – but it reported the lowest average daily cost among the analyzed cities. Meanwhile, the average daily cost in Sofia, based on a cheap hostel, budget meals, the price of public transport, and a limited budget for entertainment, amounted to roughly 39 U.S. dollars.
London and Munich were among the most expensive cities in Europe for the construction of warehouses in 2024, while advanced manufacturing facilities were the most expensive in Amsterdam. Meanwhile, among the selected cities, Paris had the lowest construction costs for warehouses. However, construction costs do not always follow the same trends as commercial real estate in Europe, with sale prices differing significantly in some cases. Warehouse take-up in Europe These high construction costs in the largest cities probably affect the take-up of large warehouses European cities. Instead, Birmingham in the United Kingdom (UK) came in first in 2023, with roughly 913,000 square meters of warehouse space spread throughout the municipality. Of the first ten entries, two werelocated in the UK, which makes it one of the most popular warehouse locations. Retail warehouse rental prices London was the UK region with the highest bix-box warehouse rent prices. As of the last quarter of 2023, roughly 28.5 British pounds were paid per square foot. This was more than twice the amount paid for the same type of buildings in the West Midlands. London was also the European city with the highest rent for warehouses, with Oslo and Helsinki following far behind.
According to a 2025 study, ***** and ***************** were the travel destinations that reported the highest change in the share of flight bookings from Europe between June and September 2025 over the previous year. *****, ********, and ******* followed in the ranking.
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Revenue in the Tour Operators industry in Europe is anticipated to grow at a compound annual rate of 13.5% to €69 billion over the five years through 2025. The decline in revenue for much of the period is predominantly due to the damage the COVID-19 outbreak inflicted on the travel sector over the two years through 2022. Customers were unable to travel abroad or domestically. Since restrictions were eased (at different intervals across different countries), holiday numbers have increased both domestically and internationally, which has seen an influx in bookings for European tour operators. Travel in Europe was 6.2% higher in 2024 than its pre-pandemic 2019 level, as recorded by the European Travel Commission, and many Europeans have sought advice and booked tours to travel to their dream destinations. Revenge travel was a trend tour operators became quickly accustomed to, with customers hungry for trips after being locked in for so long during the COVID-19 outbreak. Whilst high inflation in recent years has curbed demand with people’s pockets squeezed, savings during COVID-19 and people’s prioritisation of travel as their luxury purchase has kept bookings high. People are still booking lots of trips in 2025, but are looking for value for money. This is raising bookings in lesser frequented countries, which is encouraging tour operators to offer more packages in new countries to offer budget getaways for price sensitive customers. As a result, tour operator’s revenue is set to grow 0.3% in 2025. The weather continues to dictate seasonal demand, despite an uptick in off-season holidays, and destinations that tour operators target for trips, whilst geopolitical tensions have customers wanting the protection of booking through a travel operator. Revenue is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 4.6% over the five years through 2030 to €86.2 billion. Tour operators will continue to benefit from the growing travel industry, with people keen to travel for once-in-a-lifetime trips, city breaks, walking tours, culinary hotspots and beach retreats. Tour operators that give their customers more flexibility and the ability to book at the last minute will see significant demand as Europeans opt to travel at the last minute to reduce the risk of cancellations and airport strikes. Operators will face the challenge of adjusting packages, deals and holiday destinations to suit changing preferences. Sustainable travel tours are a growing market as travellers aim to travel more responsibly and lessen the environmental impact of tourism, which will encourage more operators to appeal to the environmentally conscious traveller.
Average daily rate (ADR) refers to the average price a room is sold for - it is calculated as room revenue divided by rooms sold. In Q2 of 2023, the nominal average daily rate for hotels in the United Kingdom's capital, London, stood at ***** British pounds, while the real average rate totaled *** British pounds.
Other important KPIs of the London hotel market
As one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe, London’s hotel market is in a prime position for growth. Following the difficulties that the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic presented to the tourism industries in both the UK and worldwide, hotel occupancy rates in London stabilized, reaching over ** percent in Q2 of 2023. Meanwhile, the nominal RevPAR in London hotels in the same quarter was around *** British pounds.
London vs. the rest of the UK
Compared to other towns and cities, London is by far the most visited UK destination by overseas visitors. Accordingly, it comes as no surprise that occupancy rates outside of London are consistently lower than in the capital. Similarly, the RevPAR in UK hotels outside of London was left than **** the figure in the capital in 2023.
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All cities with a population > 1000 or seats of adm div (ca 80.000)Sources and ContributionsSources : GeoNames is aggregating over hundred different data sources. Ambassadors : GeoNames Ambassadors help in many countries. Wiki : A wiki allows to view the data and quickly fix error and add missing places. Donations and Sponsoring : Costs for running GeoNames are covered by donations and sponsoring.Enrichment:add country name
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Vacation and travel behavior of the West German population in 1988.
Topics: frequency of vacation in the last three years; destination areas; degree of organization of trip in the previous year; stay at place of vacation or tour; repeat trips to destination; type of vacation and psychological demands of a vacation; trip month; vacation duration; time of trip decision; sources of information; use of various tour operators and use of travel agent; influence of most important sources of information and advice on personal decision behavior regarding time, place, duration, choice of means of transport, price, lodging and type of meals; time of booking and payment; name of tour operator; services booked; form of organization of the planned trip and means of transport used; meal service booked; booking by respondent or fellow travelers; catalogs and pamphlets of tour operator consulted; using and taking guide books along; frequency of traffic jams at home and abroad in traveling by car; type of lodging as well as meals on vacation; accompanied on trip by someone from one´s household and age of this person; total travel budget as well as distribution of expenditures among vacation preparations, travel, lodging and meals as well as supplementary expenses; personal activities and occupations at place of vacation; types of sport conducted during the vacation; satisfaction with vacation; information on second or third vacation trips; preference up to now and future interest in various forms of vacation; preferred vacation regions at home and abroad; frequency of short vacation trips; interest in a vacation trip in 1989; interest in getting to know the social and political conditions in the country visited on vacation; interest in organized excursions and preferred degree of organization of trips to countries far away; attitude to Denmark as place of vacation; probability of a vacation trip to Southern Tyrol in various seasons; most important reasons for or against a vacation in Southern Tyrol in the spring; perception of environmental problems in the vacation area; perceived annoyance from environmental problems in the country visited on vacation; vacation areas in which the environment is still intact or the most damaged; personal trip to Berlin and perception of the promotion ´Berlin - Culture City of Europe 1988´; vacation stays on the Italian Adriatic; judgement on the Adriatic as a vacation area; interest in a vacation trip to this area; use of a travel agent as well as tourist office during the last three years; loyalty to travel agent and tour operator; knowledge of selected tour operators; assignment of selected services and characteristics to various kinds of places to book trips; membership in the ADAC {auto club}; conducting business trips in 1988; frequency of business air travel at home and abroad; planned business trips next year and planned use of airplane.
Miscellaneous: having a yard; living together with a partner; car possession; religious denomination; assessment of development of financial situation of household; frequency of reading selected magazines and daily newspapers.
The following questions were posed to non-travelers: year of last vacation travel; reason for not taking vacation trips.
Demography: age; sex; marital status; schooling; occupation; Occupation; net household income; sources of income (from DM 300); household size; household composition; respondent is head of household; characteristics of head of household.
Also encoded were: willingness of respondent to cooperate; interest in survey topic; willingness to participate in an equivalent re-interview; date of interview; length of interview; time of interview; city size; degree of urbanization.
Amsterdam is the largest city in the Netherlands, with a population amounting to over 918,100 inhabitants. In the last ten years, Amsterdam’s population increased rapidly, and the end is not yet in sight. By 2030, the number of inhabitants is forecast to reach over one million.
Amsterdam and tourism
Amsterdam is not just a popular place to settle down, it is also one of Europe’s leading city trip destinations. In 2020, tourists spent nearly 5.8 million nights in the city. Europe’s most popular capitals, London and Paris, registered roughly 20.77 and 14.13 million nights, respectively. In 2019, Amsterdam ranked 10th on the list of leading European city tourism destinations, just below Vienna and Prague.
Tourism boom
Tourism in Amsterdam is booming. In the last ten years, the number of tourists visiting the capital has doubled. In 2018, the city registered nearly 8.6 million hotel guests. The largest group of guests visiting Amsterdam were tourists from the U.K. (three million hotel nights), followed by domestic tourists and tourists from the US (2.9 and two million hotel nights, respectively).
Our Europe Zip Code Database offers comprehensive postal code data for spatial analysis, including postal and administrative areas for numerous European countries. This dataset contains accurate and up-to-date information on all administrative divisions, cities, and zip codes, making it an invaluable resource for various applications such as address capture and validation, map and visualization, reporting and business intelligence (BI), master data management, logistics and supply chain management, and sales and marketing. Our location data packages are available in various formats, including CSV, optimized for seamless integration with popular systems like Esri ArcGIS, Snowflake, QGIS, and more. Product features include fully and accurately geocoded data, multi-language support with address names in local and foreign languages, comprehensive city definitions, and the option to combine map data with UNLOCODE and IATA codes, time zones, and daylight saving times. Companies choose our location databases for their enterprise-grade service, reduction in integration time and cost by 30%, and weekly updates to ensure the highest quality.
In 2023, Lloret de Mar in Spain recorded the highest number of tourist arrivals per inhabitant among the selected European cities. The destination, a coastal town located south of Girona and northeast of Barcelona, had roughly 31 tourist arrivals per inhabitant in 2023. That year, Dubrovnik in Croatia and Venice in Italy followed on the list, with around 30 and 23 tourist arrivals per inhabitant, respectively.
The number of international tourist arrivals to the selected European destinations increased significantly in 2023 over the previous year, experiencing strong signs of recovery from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and in some cases even surpassing pre-pandemic levels. Overall, Paris and the Île-de-France region recorded the highest figure among the selected destinations in 2023, with around **** million inbound tourist arrivals. London and Istanbul followed in the ranking that year, with roughly **** million and **** million arrivals, respectively. What are the most visited countries by international tourists? Both before and after the health crisis, France was the country with the highest number of inbound tourist arrivals worldwide. In 2023, inbound arrivals to France reached *** million, the highest figure reported by the country to date. Meanwhile, the United States, which ranked third by inbound arrivals that year, was the country with the highest international tourism receipts worldwide. Has inbound tourism recovered from the impact of COVID-19? While the number of international tourist arrivals worldwide grew sharply in 2023 compared to the previous year, it remained approximately ** percent lower than in 2019. Overall, the total contribution of travel and tourism to the global GDP was **** percent below pre-pandemic levels in 2023.