UNWTO Tourism Highlights 2012 – Top cities to travel in the world

The United Nation World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) had recently released the latest 2012 Tourism Highlights report. One of the main statistic highlighted in the report is the top ten (10) most visited countries by international traveler arrivals. If you have read the 2011 UNWTO report I posted a year ago, the result this year is exactly the same as last year, except that Turkey has gained a place up to 6th and UK down to 7th. In 2011, international tourism revenue reached a record USD1,030 Billion, up 3.9% from previous year. In terms of international tourist arrivals globally, it increased 4.6% to 983 million visitors.

Below are the top ten (10) most visited countries with the number of international travelers in year 2011. Worth taking note that these top 10 countries received more tourists last year than a year before, eventhough 2011 was a year full of incidences around the world such as weak economic performance in EU, Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan and unprecedented flood in Thailand.

1. France – 79.5 million
2.  United States – 62.3 million
3. China – 57.6 million
4. Spain – 56.7 million
5.  Italy – 46.1 million
6. Turkey – 29.3 million
7. United Kingdom – 29.2 million
8. Germany – 28.4 million
9.  Malaysia – 24.7 million
10.  Mexico – 23.4 million

As usual, most of them (6 out of 10) are European countries. I visited some cities of France, Spain, Italy, UK and Germany and they are truly marvelous being a travel destination. If you still can’t decide which country to visit next, picking any of these 10 countries and you won’t go wrong!

Same as last year, there are 2 Asian countries received top 10 number of international visitors in 2012. Not surprisingly, China managed to outscore some other popular European destinations such as Spain, Italy and United Kingdom, to clinch the 3rd spot. It is widely believed that China would become the hot cake in tourism in near future with substantial increasing number of international travelers over the past years. I have visited Shanghai, Nanjing, and Beijing and they certainly deserve my full hearted recommendation as a “must-visit” travel destination.

Again, highlighted in this year UNWTO Tourism report, Malaysia clinched the 9th spot as most visited country. Hooray! I did not know that while I’m traveling to Europe, many other European travelers are coming over to Malaysia! Belying its small size geographically if compared to most other top 10 countries (it is the smallest among other 10 except UK and Italy), Malaysia is receiving a very high number of international travelers arrival each year, almost as high as its own populations of 27 Million people. The reason being why can be witnessed through its vast and broad scope of travel attractions on offer, from architectural, cultural, geographical and warm weather. Read more onMalaysian Top 10 Places to Visit and other Malaysian travel highlights. 🙂 – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photo blog

About The Author

Cecil Lee

The author is an avid traveler and photography hobbyist who loves to share with others his travel and photo-taking experience in many popular tourist destinations around Europe, Asia and Australasia. Read the exciting stories with many photos captured on his journeys.