France: Popular Tourist Destination for Foreign Visitors

The year looks particularly positive for the French hotel sector, according to data analyzed by the digital marketing platform Sojern, a platform dedicated to the tourism industry.

Popular Tourist Destination for International Travelers

Compared to the beginning of the year, flight searches from international destinations to France have increased by 52%, while hotel searches have increased by 134%.

On average, flight search times over the last 60 days (time between search and travel) are greater than two months, indicating a strong intention to travel to France in the spring/summer of 2023. This observation is also true for national and intra-regional searches. This willingness of international travelers to (re) discover France in 2023 is also confirmed by the European Travel Commission’s recently released Long-Haul Travel Barometer, which indicates that sentiment among long-haul travelers to Europe has improved, despite a high level of global inflation.

The report looked at potential travelers from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Japan, Russia and the United States. France was ranked as the number one destination for Australians, Canadians, Chinese, Americans and Japanese and number two for Brazilians.

Another recent report from the European Tourism Commission, “Monitoring Sentiment for Domestic and Intra-European Travel,” highlights that France is the country of choice for Europeans for their next international trip and that more than three-quarters of French travelers plan to travel for leisure purposes in the near future.

However, French travelers are not left out and many of them seem determined to discover the richness of the French regions this year.

Compared to the beginning of this year, domestic searches for flights to France have increased by 28%. Hotel searches to and from France have increased by 80%.
Similar to flight searches, the majority of hotel searches conducted in the last 60 days (number of days between search and travel) are conducted within two months, again indicating that travelers are already planning their summer in France.

Type of Travelers

More than half of travelers to France are individuals (60%), followed by nearly a quarter of couples (22%) and nearly a fifth of families (18%).

The majority of travelers want to stay in France for up to one week, with international travel split fairly evenly between those who want to stay up to one week, up to two weeks, and more than two weeks.

As with flights, hotel searches show that the majority of travelers are looking to stay in France for up to a week, especially for intra-regional travel (58%).