Travel: in Italy foreigners spend $976 per person, in Spain $1,080

The long run-up of the tourism to recover pre-pandemic levels will be completed in 2024. The latest forecasts drawn up by the Unwto (UN tourism agency) confirm a full recovery of international travel for the current year, with arrivals up 2% compared to 2019 (the last year not affected by the impact of the global pandemic). The first three months confirm this trend: between January and March, international visitor nights were 97% up on the numbers of five years ago. A demand supported by improved air connections and the recovery of Asian markets, China in the lead.

In 2023, international tourism revenues reached$1.5 trillion: a figure corresponding to full recovery of pre-pandemic levels in nominal terms but 97% in real terms net of inflation. Europe generated the most revenue: the Old Continent's destinations earned $660 billion, exceeding pre-pandemic levels by 7% in real terms.

Moreover, European countries as a whole dominated last year's ranking in terms of the number of international arrivals: in first place was France with its 100 million foreign visitors (+7.3% compared to 2022), followed by Spain (85.17 million, +18.8% compared to 2022 and +2% compared to 2019). In third place was the United States (66.48 million, -7.23% on 2022) and, just off the podium, the Italy : our country recorded 55.9 million international arrivals, +14.9% on the previous year but still -11.25% on 2019. However, the Belpaese surpassed Turkey which, with 55.16 million international arrivals, grew less than Italy (+9.34% over 2022, a 7.76% jump when compared to 2019).

In the first quarter of 2024, however, the top performing destinations are Qatar (+177% compared to the first three months of 2019), Albania (+121%) and Saudi Arabia (+98%). The Saudi government is investing billions of dollars to transform the country into a tourist hub: the goal is to attract 150 million pilgrims a year by 2030 (in 2023, foreign travellers totalled 27.42 million).

If one looks instead at the 2023 revenue generated by international tourism, the USA stands out with $175 billion. Spain can count on revenues of 92 billion, Great Britain has collected 73.9 billion, France 68.6 and Italy 55.9. From the overall figures, the average revenue per foreign tourist can be derived: the highest (and unattainable) value is that of Australia ($6,480 per foreign traveller entering the country) which doubles the second highest (Lebanon, $3,246). In Spain the value is just over a thousand dollars (1,080), a threshold below which Italy stops with 960 dollars. The 100 million foreign visitors to France secured revenue of USD 68.6 billion with an average value per foreign visitor of USD 686.