If you had to guess which country has the most travelers venturing out to see the world, what would it be?
In 1997, it was Germany. The USA was second until 2002 when the UK took over the number two spot. In 2010, the USA took back its second place standing from the UK... with Germany still holding onto the number spot.
By 2004, the largest populated country in the world, that was at the bottom of the chart in 1997, took over the number four spot and China changed the focus of tourist boards and their target audiences. By 2011, China passed by the UK and the next year, they shot past both the USA and Germany to take over number one by an incredibly wide margin.
China has a huge population. Are you curious about the percentage of travelers for these countries? I was, too. But, here's the thing. The statistics are for outward-bound travel, so they do not account for people who take multiple trips outside their country... like me. This explains why countries like the UK and Germany have more outward-bound trips than citizens. In addition, Germany is in the Schengen area where its citizens, and those from countries in the rest of that European district, travel in and out of countries with no tracking. For example, I have friends in Switzerland who go to Germany every week to shop and to their other neighbors like France and Italy for holidays.
Back to China and the USA. If the 143 million people are taking just one trip abroad per year, of the 1.4 billion citizens in China, only ten percent are leaving their country. If the 87.7 million Americans traveling outbound did one trip a year, of 327 million people, the percentage would be 27 percent.
For my readers who travel abroad often, do these statistics surprise you? How so? If you are like me, I thought the percentage of Americans who leave the country would be higher. I think that is because the more you travel, the more friends you make and have that travel. But, when I get together with the friends I grew up with in my rural hometown, I realize that very few of them venture overseas. Since becoming a city mouse, the percentage of friends I have who were born overseas, have been expats overseas or spend their holidays primarily overseas, is much higher.
Why do you travel abroad? And if you haven't yet, what is stopping you?
To check out the cool interactive chart where I received the information above, click the link below:
https://skift.com/2019/06/14/two-decades-of-outbound-travel-visualized-new-skift-research/?fbclid=IwAR0csyWhbvDHGxeOsSKFWD7cjdFZL2xAUSz0G9iLG_YUf3-izTukaCYHRzg
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