Tourism direct GDP (2023) | Tourism direct employment (2024) | Travel exports (2024) |
|---|---|---|
3.8% of total GDP (equal to levels in 2022) | 7.6% of total employment (up 0.2 percentage points since 2022) | 19.1% of total service exports (up 0.1 percentage points since 2023) |
OECD Tourism Trends and Policies 2026
National tourism strategy: Destination France Plan
Responsible government agency: Ministry of Economy and Finance
National tourism budget: EUR 23.9 million (2025)
Key tourism policy priorities and actions:
Supporting innovative and digital tourism – Supporting start-ups developing solutions based on innovative technologies through the France Tourism Tech programme.
Promoting the development of sustainable local tourism – Encouraging visits to companies and artisan workshops, in line with the national roadmap for know-how tourism (tourisme de savoir-faire).
Harnessing existing data for tourism development – Mapping existing databases to better exploit existing data and developing the France Tourisme Observation Data Hub to integrate tourism data for better monitoring.
Tourism is a significant contributor to the French economy. In 2023, tourism directly contributed 3.8% of total GDP. Direct tourism employment amounted to 1.5 million jobs in 2024, which was an increase of 23 500 jobs compared with 2023. Consolidated data indicates that revenues from international tourism reached EUR 71.1 billion in 2024, and that the total consumption from both domestic and international tourists reached EUR 211 billion in 2023. Tourism contributes positively to the balance of payments. In 2024, the tourism balance (exports less imports) amounted to EUR 15.9 billion, compared to EUR 9.9 billion in 2019.
France recorded 100 million inbound tourist arrivals in 2024. The top markets were Germany (14.5% of international tourist arrivals), Belgium (14.5%), United Kingdom (12.9%), and Switzerland (8.8%). Arrivals increased to 102 million in 2025.
Domestic tourism remains a major component of tourism demand, with 235.9 million overnight stays in hotels and camping establishments in 2024, 66% of all such overnight stays in France.
The Ministry of Economy and Finance is responsible for tourism at the national level in France, implemented through the Directorate General for Enterprise. The transversal nature of tourism as an economic sector means inter-ministerial co-ordination is of great importance and is carried out by the Interministerial Tourism Committee chaired by the Prime Minister. Dialogue between public administrations and private sector representatives takes place within the Tourism Sector Committee (CFT), which brings together public and private stakeholders to guide tourism development and policy. Thematic working groups within the Committee help co-build public policies.
In France, tourism is a shared competence, with all levels of sub-national government involved in tourism policy development and implementation. Each regional council, with the support of the Regional Tourism Committee, co-ordinates public and private initiatives in the field of tourism development, information and promotion, including actions on international markets. They also collect, process and disseminate local data relating to tourism in each region. Departmental councils can set up Departmental Tourism Committees focusing on structuring the offer and supporting the stakeholders involved. At the municipal authority level, responsibility for tourism has largely been transferred from municipalities to Public Inter-municipal Co-operation Establishments.
The overall budgetary allocation for tourism from state and local authorities is difficult to calculate as it includes the contributions from multiple ministerial departments and administrative levels. Local authorities benefit from specific taxes linked to tourism which generated slightly over EUR 1 billion in revenue in 2023. At the state level, Atout France, the public operator in charge of promotion and observation, received EUR 23.1 million in public subsidies in 2025 and spent EUR 22.6 million on promotion. Their overall budget in 2025 is EUR 60.4 million.
Source: OECD, adapted from the Directorate-General for Enterprise, 2026.
Since the conclusion of the Destination France plan in 2024, France’s tourism strategy has been primarily structured around the outcomes of the Interministerial Tourism Committee, chaired by the Prime Minister in July 2025. This framework sets the direction for the country’s tourism policy priorities for 2026 and beyond. It reiterates the objective set by the Destination France plan for France to become the world’s leading sustainable tourism destination by 2030 and establishes a target of EUR 100 billion in international tourism receipts by 2030. The roadmap is structured around five priorities: (i) modernising the tools of public tourism policy; (ii) strengthening France’s attractiveness and international influence; (iii) attracting new talent to the sector; (iv) supporting the sector through its various transitions; and (v) diversifying the tourism offer.
Complementing the Destination France Plan is the National Strategy for the Management of Tourist Flows. Adopted in 2023, the Strategy aims to preserve the balance between the development of local economic activity and the sustainability and preservation of tourist sites. The Strategy is structured around four main pillars: (i) promoting a shared understanding of tourist flow management, (ii) raising awareness among stakeholders and visitors, (iii) measuring flows and their impacts to improve management, and (iv) supporting territories in implementing effective flow management practices.
Under the Strategy for the Management of Tourist Flows, 25 pilot sites have been selected to strengthen the observation of flows in each territory and develop management strategies adapted to local specificities. The initiative, led by Atout France, provided financial support for engineering services and ran until the end of 2025. An assessment of the projects carried out will be conducted during 2026 to allow for capitalisation at the national level. A practical guide was developed, gathering key insights and concrete case studies to support flow management. A comprehensive review of the Tourism Flow Strategy is underway. New measures will be launched, such as the organisation of a Hackathon to establish a methodology for better operability of data on tourist flows.
The sustainability of tourism is a key priority for France. It is pursued through recurring measures that contribute to the objectives of sustainable and socially acceptable tourism. This includes initiatives to support slow tourism, help tourism professionals reduce their water consumption, advance work on low-carbon mobility and the preservation of biodiversity. The sustainability agenda is also reflected in the development of sustainable tourism indicators, including to measure the carbon footprint of the sector, and in the progressive greening of classification standards for accommodation.
France also supports specific tourism segments, such as “know-how tourism”, that represent an important lever for local development and attractiveness for both businesses and territories. Know-how or industrial tourism (tourisme de savoir-faire) refers to visits to companies and artisan workshops that showcase local expertise, supporting territorial development, promoting “Made in France,” and contributing to more sustainable and locally anchored tourism. The “Savoir-Faire Tourism Fund” launched in 2022, with EUR 5 million in state funding and regional co-financing, supports businesses in developing visitor experience across ten regions. Building on this, a dedicated roadmap was adopted in 2025 to scale up the sector by increasing visitor numbers, structuring key industries, improving the quality of the visitor offer, and strengthening project support mechanisms.
To support innovation in tourism, the France Tourism Tech programme is designed to foster the emergence of French champions in the travel tech sector. Each year, the programme supports approximately ten start-ups developing solutions based on innovative technologies applied to tourism, such as AI, big data, cloud computing, IoT, immersive reality, blockchain and cryptography, cybersecurity, and new mobility. The start-ups receive support from up to 70 public and private partners, including major corporations, investors and institutional stakeholders. The second cohort of start-ups, of the now permanent programme, received dedicated support throughout 2025 and the third cohort was launched in November 2025.
Structuring and integrating tourism data remains a challenge. France mapped existing databases across sub-segments of tourism (e.g. accommodation, retail, passenger transport) and organised a hackathon to promote their use (box below). Work continues on the France Tourisme Observation Data Hub. Several modules are available to institutional partners, enabling real-time monitoring of tourism activity in France and competing destinations. Other joint projects are under development within the platform, including monitoring inbound tourist spending through banking data and activity in the short-term rental market.
To strengthen the attractiveness of tourism professions for young people, France continues to organise a “Tourism Careers Week”, designed to highlight the training opportunities and professions in the sector. This initiative brings together, tourism professionals and training institutions with young people aged 14 to 25 and job seekers to showcase the wide diversity of careers in the sector, the training pathways leading to them, and the related employment opportunities.
France organised a hackathon on “Making Tourism Accessible for Persons with Disabilities” in December 2024 to improve the use of open tourism data, with a particular focus on the accessibility of tourism sites. This initiative responded to three main challenges: (i) the cross-cutting nature of tourism data, which makes mapping available data difficult; (ii) its fragmentation and under-use, limiting its potential for public policy and business innovation; (iii) the need for stronger sector engagement with data and AI, particularly in areas such as accessibility.
The event brought together approximately 60 participants over two days, including data scientists, IT students, tourism stakeholders, accessibility specialists and representatives of disability associations. The objective was to develop open-source solutions and new concrete use cases. A jury of qualified experts in tourism and accessibility selected three winning projects, all of which proposed innovative ways to use existing datasets for the benefit of persons with disabilities.
Preparatory work began in 2023 with the production of a comprehensive mapping of tourism-related datasets, covering more than 150 data sources. This mapping was published on the national open data platform in 2024 and downloaded more than 300 times in three months, illustrating strong interest from stakeholders. Building on this momentum, France organised the hackathon to mobilise professionals and innovators around tourism data and accessibility.
A restitution event in January 2025 showcased the winning projects and convened key actors from the tourism and data ecosystems.
The hackathon fostered collaboration between tourism and data stakeholders, both public and private, to develop innovative open-source solutions. It generated new concrete use cases relevant to large organisations and SMEs, stimulated the emergence of new business models, and raised awareness among participants of the challenges of accessibility. The hackathon forms part of a wider Tourism Data Roadmap, announced at the event in January 2025, which. This roadmap will support the circulation and valorisation of tourism data, both to inform public policy and to help stakeholders develop new use cases. The initial results are still pending, but other initiatives are already in the pipeline.