Two years after the COVID-19 pandemic essentially shut down international travel worldwide, the tourism industry is bouncing back as summer arrives in the northern hemisphere.
International tourism saw a close to 200% year-over-year increase in the first quarter of 2022, and although several related statistics are still well below 2019 levels, gradual recovery is expected to continue throughout the year, according to June analysis from the United Nations World Tourism Organization. Nearly 50% of experts surveyed by the organization said they expect international tourism to return to those pre-pandemic levels from three years ago in 2023, while 44% said it could be 2024 or later.
This is especially good news for countries whose economies are the most reliant on the tourism industry. Those countries include Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba and St. Lucia, according to 2021 gross domestic product data released in June by The World Travel & Tourism Council.
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But the countries most supported economically by tourism aren’t necessarily the ones that welcome the most visitors. The United Nations compiles several metrics related to inbound tourism by country, including international tourist arrivals, with the most recent data being from 2021. The statistics show that industry recovery still has a ways to go: The most-visited country in 2021 had about 32 million international arrivals. France, the top-ranked country in 2019 – before the pandemic hit – had 90 million.
Here are the countries that welcomed the most international tourist arrivals in 2021, according to the U.N. Included for each are other pieces of tourism-related data, such as GDP contribution percentages from the WTTC.
