Who are the most adventurous when it comes to travelling? A new study from Timetric ranks the world’s most well travelled countries.
According to Timetric’s new data, Scandinavians travel the most, with the 4 Nordic countries all in the top 5.
The Finns top the chart with an average of 7.5 trips per person a year, followed by Sweden (6), Denmark (5.3) and Norway (5.2). According to Arnie van Groesen, travel and tourism analyst at Timetric, the reason why Scando’s travel so much comes down to money, weather and holiday traditions: “People in Scandinavia can afford more trips due to high incomes and relatively low unemployment rates.
Cost of living is relatively expensive in Scandinavian countries, meaning that if they go abroad they’ll often get more value for money. The weather conditions make them attracted to less severe conditions in the southern part of the world, such as the Spanish beaches.”
People in Scandinavia can afford more trips due to high incomes and relatively low unemployment rates.
Furthermore, lots of Scandinavian people own second holiday homes and love to spend time in these so called “summer houses” in the country or by the sea. The Norwegians make 2 international trips per year on average, which is the highest in Europe.
Meanwhile, over in the states the average American takes 6.7 trips a year. The large majority of these are domestic trips, making the US the largest domestic tourism market in the world in volume terms.
International travel is very limited. Which doesn’t necessarily help Tourism Austalia’s case. Only 1 out of 5 Americans make an international trip a year and less than half of Americans own a passport. According to van Groesen, “going abroad is costly and the US is such a vast country it doesn’t lack of things to see and do.”
The average American takes 6.7 trips a year
Visiting friends and family is the main reason for domestic trips, as many Americans are living in a different state than where they grew up making it natural for them to travel back multiple times a year, with Thanksgiving and Christmas being peak periods.
Another thing worth a note is travelling culture and the amount of time spent abroad. According to van Groesen, many Americans, and other more excluded parts of the world, such as Australia, prefer to take longer and fewer trips abroad.
Another reason why Americans prefer domestic trips is because of the low number of holidays. Americans don’t have any minimum rights of paid holidays and are often not allowed to take all their holidays at once. Across Europe, employers are entitled to an average minimum of 22 days paid holidays in 2013, excluding the number of public holidays.
Hong Kong is the sixth most well travelled country in the world. Although domestic tourism is almost nonexistent (0.03), the average Hongkongese takes 4.3 outbound trips a year, 74% of these to China. Mexico ranks surprisingly high, performing better than all the BRIC countries; especially domestic tourism is very popular with 1.7 domestic trips a year.
Hong Kong is the sixth most well travelled country in the world
So what about us Aussies and our good friends over the ditch? Australia faired ninth in the table with an average of 3.8 trips per year (Domestic and International).
Our Kiwi friends faired a little better in seventh place with an average of 4.3 trips per year (Domestic and International).