Tourism in Germany

Germany recorded a total of 39 million tourists in 2018, ranking 8th in the world in absolute terms.

The fact that larger countries regularly perform better in a comparison of the absolute number of guests is obvious. By putting the tourist numbers in relation to the population of Germany, the result is much more comparable picture: With 0.47 tourists per resident, Germany ranked 93rd in the world. In Western Europe, it ranked 9th.

Germany generated around 60.26 billion US Dollar in the tourism sector alone. This corresponds to 1.6 percent of its the gross domestic product and approximately 27 percent of all international tourism receipts in Western Europe.

A global comparison can be found here › International tourism

Back to overview: Germany

Most popular destinations in Germany

No less than 3 cities in Germany are among the top 100 most popular destinations worldwide. In 2018 Berlin reached the 41st place with 5.96 million tourists. According to Euromonitor all tourists with at least one overnight stay were counted.

City	Tourists	Rank
Berlin	5,959,400	#41
München	4,066,600	#56
Frankfurt am Main	2,636,000	#87

On average, each of the tourists arriving in 2018 spent about 1,384 US Dollars. Conversely, the inhabitants of Germany spend only around 858 dollars a year when they themselves spend vacations abroad.

Development of the tourism sector in Germany from 1995 to 2018

The following chart shows the number of tourist arrivals registered in Germany each year. Anyone who spends at least one night in the country but does not live there for more than 12 months is considered a tourist. Insofar as the survey included the purpose of the trip, business trips and other non-tourism travel purposes have already been excluded. The number of people passing through within the same day, and e.g. crew members of ships or flights are also not considered as tourists in most countries. If the same person travels in and out more than once within the same year, each visit counts again.

Data in the chart are given in millions of tourists. The red line represents the average of all 9 countries in Western Europe.

Tourists per year in Germany

Revenues in tourism

In 1995, tourism revenues amounted to 24.05 billion USD, or about 0.93 percent of the gross national product. This corresponded to about 14.85 million tourists at that time and roughly 1,620 USD per person. Within 23 years, the country's dependence on tourism has increased noticeably. In the last year of the survey, the revenue now amounts to 60.26 billion USD, accounting for 1.5 percent of the gross national product. Each visitor now spends an average of 1,550 USD for his holiday in Germany.

Tourism receipts in Germany per year

All data for Germany in detail

Year	Number of tourists	Receipts	% of GNP	Receipts per tourist
1995	14.85 m	24.05 bn $	0.93 %	1,620 $
1996	15.21 m	23.98 bn $	0.96 %	1,577 $
1997	15.84 m	24.50 bn $	1.1 %	1,547 $
1998	16.51 m	25.81 bn $	1.2 %	1,563 $
1999	17.12 m	25.33 bn $	1.2 %	1,480 $
2000	18.98 m	24.94 bn $	1.3 %	1,314 $
2001	17.86 m	24.18 bn $	1.2 %	1,354 $
2002	17.97 m	26.69 bn $	1.3 %	1,485 $
2003	18.40 m	30.10 bn $	1.2 %	1,636 $
2004	20.14 m	36.39 bn $	1.3 %	1,807 $
2005	21.50 m	40.53 bn $	1.4 %	1,885 $
2006	23.57 m	45.54 bn $	1.5 %	1,932 $
2007	24.42 m	49.33 bn $	1.4 %	2,020 $
2008	24.88 m	53.40 bn $	1.4 %	2,146 $
2009	24.22 m	47.46 bn $	1.4 %	1,960 $
2010	26.88 m	49.12 bn $	1.4 %	1,828 $
2011	28.37 m	53.47 bn $	1.4 %	1,884 $
2012	30.41 m	51.63 bn $	1.5 %	1,698 $
2013	31.55 m	55.49 bn $	1.5 %	1,759 $
2014	33.00 m	58.72 bn $	1.5 %	1,779 $
2015	34.97 m	50.67 bn $	1.5 %	1,449 $
2016	35.56 m	52.23 bn $	1.5 %	1,469 $
2017	37.45 m	56.33 bn $	1.5 %	1,504 $
2018	38.88 m	60.26 bn $	1.5 %	1,550 $

All data correspond to the information of the World Tourism Organization.