World tourism ranking

[nebula]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Tourism_rankings

 

fascinating figures of 2015 world tourism ranking. france has been the most visited country for god knows how many years. united states is making the most profit out of international tourism with a receipt of more than 200 billion dollars and an expenditure of 112 billion dollars. chinese tourists' dominance as biggest spender on international trip widened, chinese spent almost 300 billions dollars on international travel in 2015, almost 3 times over american tourists. how these trends will shape the future tourism industry?

[+ glennnn]

The approximate populations are: US 324 million, China 1 billion, 375 million. I think that we will see many more Chinese tourists in the decades ahead. I wonder what the relative per capita travel spending is domestically and internationally.

[+ bigjoey]

It would be interesting to know how they define "tourist." Everyday, Palestinians cross into Israel to work; is that a foreign visitor? Is each daily crossing a separate visitor count? Israel considers Jerusalem one complete city; much of the world does not. Do the statics see all of Jerusalem as one city and if not, are Israeli commuters counted as foreign visitors.

 

Hong Kong is listed as a country. It is now part of China. Like Israel, people commute in and out of Hong Kong. Even if they counted Hong Kong as a country, what land area: the island or the mainland that was only rented from China and whose lease has ended,

 

Mexico and the U.S. raise similar problems. Where I worked, we had a Mexican customer. We were selling him goods made in China which carried a huge duty. To avoid the duty, we sent the goods to Larado, Texas. The customer had a company send individuals to the U.S. side of the border and bring back to Mexico the amount of duty free goods allowed ($250 I think); these people's job was to go back and forth across the border all day long bringing in goods duty free. Was each trip counted as a crossing for statistical purposes in the tourist charts.

 

I often wonder how such figures get compiled and the politics behind them. Years ago, I worked with an industry group that spent months working on just such questions. Until then, I never gave such things much thought and accepted information like that presented in the original post at face value. Setting up the criteria for these statistics is often harder than it seems at first glance.

[+ WilliamM]

It would be interesting to know how they define "tourist." Everyday, Palestinians cross into Israel to work; is that a foreign visitor? Is each daily crossing a separate visitor count? Israel considers Jerusalem one complete city; much of the world does not. Do the statics see all of Jerusalem as one city and if not, are Israeli commuters counted as foreign visitors.

 

Hong Kong is listed as a country. It is now part of China. Like Israel, people commute in and out of Hong Kong. Even if they counted Hong Kong as a country, what land area: the island or the mainland that was only rented from China and whose lease has ended,

 

Mexico and the U.S. raise similar problems. Where I worked, we had a Mexican customer. We were selling him goods made in China which carried a huge duty. To avoid the duty, we sent the goods to Larado, Texas. The customer had a company send individuals to the U.S. side of the border and bring back to Mexico the amount of duty free goods allowed ($250 I think); these people's job was to go back and forth across the border all day long bringing in goods duty free. Was each trip counted as a crossing for statistical purposes in the tourist charts.

 

I often wonder how such figures get compiled and the politics behind them. Years ago, I worked with an industry group that spent months working on just such questions. Until then, I never gave such things much thought and accepted information like that presented in the original post at face value. Setting up the criteria for these statistics is often harder than it seems at first glance.

 

I agree with most of your comments. The Brits were still in Hong Kong when I visited in 1969. I know a student who is spending a semester in Hong Kong, starting in a few weeks. He knows it's part of China, but sometimes speaks about Hong Kong as a separate identity.

 

As much as I like Australia, it's too far away for most people. I was surprised to see Japan so low on the list.

[+ glennnn]

Glad to see Japan low on the list. Hoping for a month there in March. The fewer other visitors the better.

[nebula]

it is good to hear some good news we are making a big surplus on something for a change, sick of trade deficit and debt news.