The table compares the number of tourists (millions) and the total of tourist spending (billion) in five different countries in 2012 and 2013. Overall, both countries examined saw an increase in the number of tourists, except for China showing a downward trend. In Addition, while France registered the highest figures over 5 countries, the USA has the highest spending on tourism in both years.
In 2012, the number of tourists in France was the highest, at 83 million, and then increased to 84.7 million in 2013, remaining higher than the other countries. The USA had the second highest figures, which rose from 66.7 million at the beginning to 69.8 million at the end of the period, similar to those in Spain (rising by 3.5 million over one year). The figure for Italy also experienced a rise to a small extent, between 46.4 million to 47.7 million despite having the lowest number. In contrast, only China saw a decline in the number of tourists, with a drop of 2 million.
In terms of tourist spending, the USA ranked first over 4 other countries with the figures rising from 126.2 billion dollars in 2012 to 139.6 billion dollars in 2013, while the figure for Spain increased from 56.3 to 60.4, which was the second highest expenditure on tourism. Notably, France was just the third highest , with the figures being between 53.6 billion dollars and 56.1 billion dollars in 2 years, while the figure for Italy was still the lowest, ( with 41.2 in 2012 and 43.9 in 2013). The spending on tourists in China still experienced a rise, although to a lesser extent (by 1.7 billion dollars).