See Which Countries Love Tourists. And Which Don’t.
An interesting report from the World Economic Forum has just been released on travel and tourism “competitiveness” and the top 10 includes mostly countries in Europe and North America (Switzerland topped the list with the U.S. number six). Singapore brought up the rear.
But when it comes to the friendliest countries, it was a whole different story.
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Friendly, Welcoming Countries
Friendly or “welcoming” nations are listed in a section of the report called “Attitude of population toward foreign visitors” and the findings are all over the map, literally. The U.S. made a fairly mediocre showing here, coming in at number 102 out of 140 countries (nestled between Paraguay and Botswana). Other examples of rankings: Uganda (40), Estonia (50), Denmark (117).
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Ranking were based on a scale from 1 (visitors very unwelcome) to 7 (visitor very welcome), and here are the top 10:
- Iceland 6.8
- New Zealand 6.8
- Morocco 6.7
- Macedonia, FYR 6.7
- Austria 6.7
- Senegal 6.7
- Portugal 6.6
- Bosnia and Herzegovina 6.6
- Ireland 6.6
- Burkina Faso 6.6
See the complete list of all 140 nations’ rankings on page 487 of the report.
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Nations Less Welcoming to Tourists
Some have dubbed these the unfriendliest countries, but in fairness, none ranked anywhere close to the “1″ designated as very unwelcoming. The following are the bottom 10:
- Bolivia 4.1
- Venezuela 4.5
- Russian Federation 5.0
- Kuwait 5.2
- Latvia 5.2
- Iran 5.2
- Pakistan 5.3
- Slovak Republic 5.5
- Bulgaria 5.5
- Mongolia 5.5
