Countries by International Tourist Arrivals 2024

Eight countries ranked by international tourist arrivals in 2024, in millions, as reported by UN Tourism. France leads on 100 million, with Spain on 94 million and the United States on 79 million.

These eight destinations account for 535 million arrivals between them, and France takes 18.7 percent of that on its own. The gap between France and Spain is six million; the gap between Spain and the United States is fifteen million, so the two European leaders are much closer to each other than to anybody else.

An arrival is a border crossing by a visitor staying at least one night, not a person. A traveller touring four European countries in a fortnight is counted four separate times, once by each. That structure favours countries that are easy to enter overland and sit on the route between other destinations, and it is a large part of why the top of this table is European: the continent packs many countries into short distances with open internal borders.

Thailand's appearance on 36 million is notable in that context, because it earns its position without any of those advantages — visitors arrive by air, from far away, and stay for extended periods.

This chart covers 2024. A separate 2025 series exists on the site with a different source, and the two are not directly comparable: national tourism boards and UN Tourism revise arrival estimates for a year or more after it ends, and definitions of what counts as a visitor differ slightly between publishers. Comparing the same country across two differently sourced years will produce differences that are artefacts of the method rather than real changes in travel.