If so many people come to France every year, perhaps the French are not as grumpy as the clichés make them out to be? Our country thus welcomed 100 million foreign visitors in 2024. It maintains its position as the world's leading destination, but remains in competition with Spain which generates more revenue.
While global tourism returned to its pre-Covid-19 level in 2024 with 1.4 billion tourists having traveled abroad, raising serious questions of overtourism and ecology for many natural environments, both Latin states have successively announced attendance records.
For France, this is two million more visitors compared to 2023 and revenues of 71 billion euros. “If France is still a world leader in this sector, we face very strong competition, particularly from Spain which, with fewer visitors, manages to generate more revenue,” said French Tourism Minister Nathalie Delattre in an interview Tuesday with the daily newspaper le Figaro.
For its part, with 94 million foreign visitors, Spain raked in 126 billion euros in revenue. “Part of this is that visitors are staying longer. More than the number of tourists, it is the expenditure generated which is important. We must therefore work with the aim of increasing the average basket per visitor and making our visitors stay longer,” believes the French minister. To succeed in attracting customers for longer, the minister in office since the end of December announces a “double priority: making France the leading sustainable tourism destination by 2030 and improving the hotel offer”.
-Faced with competition from southern European countries, it “we must capitalize as best we can on the Olympic Games effect”, believes Dominique Marcel, president of the Alliance France Tourisme, a think tank which brings together companies such as Accor, SNCF Connect and Compagnie des Alpes.
Many Emily in Paris
The Americans, “with overnight stays up 5%, they are becoming an essential clientele” with strong purchasing power, notes a press release from the Ministry of Tourism. Asian customers are returning to France but the number of Chinese visitors remains 60% lower than before the pandemic. Japanese visitors, not benefited by the exchange rate, are 30% fewer than in 2019.
“The outlook for the first quarter of 2025 is very good with attendance on the rise,” adds the press release, thanks in particular to good snow conditions which boosted attendance at ski resorts and an increase in international air arrivals. Good news for the economy and bad news for the environment. “If technological levers are part of the solution, no decarbonization scenario is compatible with the Paris agreement without reducing air traffic,” recalled in Libé last year Alexis Chailloux, the transport manager of Réseau Action Climat France.
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