China was the country with the highest outbound tourism expenditure worldwide in 2023, with Chinese travelers spending 196.5 billion U.S. dollars on outbound trips that year. While this figure represented a sharp annual increase, it remained below the outbound travel expenditure recorded in 2019, the year before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, the United States and Germany followed in the ranking in 2023.
Has global tourism recovered from the impact of COVID-19?
In 2023, thenumber of international tourist arrivals worldwide totaled 1.3 billion, growing significantly over the previous year but not catching up yet with the peak in arrivals from 2019. That said, international tourism receipts worldwide exceeded pre-pandemic levels in 2023, peaking at 1.5 trillion U.S. dollars.
What are the most popular regions for inbound tourism worldwide?
Both before and after the impact of the pandemic, Europe was theglobal region with the highest number of international tourist arrivals. In 2023, the number of inbound arrivals in Europe surpassed 700 million. Comparatively, Asia and the Pacific, which recorded the second-highest figure that year, reported around 240 million inbound tourist arrivals.
