It should come as no surprise to know that France is the world’s most popular tourist destination. With near 90 million visitors every normal non-covid year, France is a head and shoulders above Spain, which comes in second, receiving 82 million visitors per year. The number 3 spot goes to the USA with 78 million. These statistics confirm that France is once again the world’s first choice holiday destination, despite a rather turbulent few years.
So, what is it exactly that attracts people from all over the world to France? We’ll try to boil France down to its essence and show you why it is the most popular tourist destination in the world. After all, 89 million people can’t be wrong, can they?
The City of light
It almost goes without saying, but the French capital is a huge draw for foreign visitors – over 30 million of them a year, more than any other city in the world.
What makes it so popular? Where to start. There’s the city’s romantic image, the stunning architecture, the Louvre Museum, the iconic Eiffel Tower as well as the simple pleasure of sitting at a café terrace and watching the world go by. European and US visitors have flocked here from all the world for many years, and they keep coming back and in recent years the appeal of Paris has gripped the far east, with more and more Chinese nationals coming to get a glimpse of the Champs Elysée’s and its array of boutiques.
And don’t forget Disneyland, which is a destination in itself for foreign visitors. With around 15 million visitors each year, the theme park, just to the east of the French capital is Europe’s top tourist destination.
France’s food and wine
France is synonymous with its famed gastronomical traditions and the chance to dine on French specialities, even the cliché snails or steak tartare, is no doubt a major part of what attracts visitors to the country.
Confit de canard, rillettes, Beef Bourguignon, fresh baguettes and stinky cheese are also popular menu items. France knows this and is keen to protect its status as the world’s food capital.
No proper French meal is complete without a few glasses of wine and there is a vast array of wines produced, each unique and with their own typical character. Annually, about 24 million foreign tourists visit Bordeaux, Burgundy and France’s other wine regions.
The variety of mountains, sun, and the sea
More French tend to travel within France than take to exotic international locales. Why? France has everything that any visitor would like to see including visitors from within France. From pristine countryside to snow-covered mountains and sandy beaches the huge range of landscapes is enormously diverse – even for the French.
As any tour operator will tell you, each region in France has something unique to offer. And each region you visit has its own unique appeal from great cities like Marseille, Lyon, and Paris to the rolling countryside of Auvergne and Burgundy. France really does have something for everyone.
Strategic location
Part of France’s appeal, however, could just be a sheer coincidence of geography. For example, British tourists are looking to escape their homeland’s unreliable summers; France is just a short trip across the Channel, a journey more than 13 million make every year. Travelers from another of France’s neighbors, Germany, make up 13 million visitors to France, more than any other country.
Not all of these visitors come to see France itself however. Because of France’s geographical location, many tourists have to pass through the country on their way to other destinations such as Italy and Spain.
The number of borders
France shares borders with eight different nations, which means it’s even easier for all those Francophiles to pop over. It’s hardly arduous for British visitors either, with Eurostar, Eurotunnel, and a relentless procession of ferries linking us to mainland Europe.
France is not, however, the country with the most borders in Europe. Germany actually has nine (Denmark, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands) – but has suffered from something of an image problem among British visitors for many years (a perception, incidentally, that at last seems to be shifting).
And Russia and China have a whopping 14 borders each – both welcome a notable number of tourists, but nowhere near as many as France.