How close is Spain to becoming the world’s most visited country?

If you live in Spain, you already know what happens when the holiday season arrives: packed beaches, busy airports, queues outside restaurants and streets where finding a quiet table can feel like an achievement in itself. Now imagine adding millions more international visitors to the mix. A new long-term tourism forecast predicts that Spain could overtake France to become the world’s most visited country by 2040, with international arrivals reaching around 110 million a year.

The prediction comes from a joint study by Google and Deloitte examining how international tourism has changed since 1990 and how it could develop over the next 14 years. Spain is already close behind France. In 2025, France remained the world’s most visited country, welcoming 102 million international tourists, while Spain received 96.8 million, up from 94 million in 2024.

Spain is closing the gap

That means fewer than six million international arrivals separated the two countries last year. According to the forecast, that gap could eventually disappear, with Spain reaching approximately 110 million annual visitors by 2040, compared with around 105 million for France. The figures are projections rather than a guarantee, but they put Spain at the top of a rapidly expanding international tourism market. The study predicts that international travel will continue growing sharply over the coming years, with around 2.4 billion international trips expected worldwide by 2040.

Europe is forecast to remain the world’s largest destination region, accounting for around 38 per cent of international trips. Spain is expected to benefit from that continued growth, although it will not be the only country attracting substantially more visitors. The forecast puts the United States at around 100 million international arrivals in 2040, while China and Mexico are each expected to reach approximately 90 million. Italy is also expected to remain one of the world’s biggest tourism destinations, although the study predicts that its position among the leading destinations will change.

A new generation of tourists

One of the biggest forces behind the expected increase is the expansion of the global middle class. As incomes rise in emerging economies, more people are expected to have the money and opportunity to travel internationally.

The five biggest source markets, China, the United States, Germany, the UK and Russia, are expected to account for 42 per cent of international departures by 2040, compared with 34 per cent in 2019. Countries including Pakistan, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Mexico are also expected to become increasingly important sources of international travellers as their middle classes grow.

That could gradually change the profile of Spain’s visitors, adding more travellers from outside its traditional European markets. The country already attracts tourists from across the world, but future growth is expected to come from a much broader range of source countries.

Spain faces more competition too

Spain is not expected to have the tourism market to itself. The study forecasts major growth in destinations including Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates, while Mexico could move into the world’s top five destinations by 2040. The combined share of international tourism held by the five biggest destinations is also expected to fall from around 30 per cent in 2019 to 20 per cent in 2040.

In other words, tourism is expected to spread across more countries even as Spain continues to attract enormous numbers of visitors. For Spanish businesses, another increase in international visitors could mean more customers for hotels, restaurants, shops, attractions and transport services. But for people living in some of Spain’s busiest tourist destinations, the consequences could be more complicated.

What would another 13 million visitors mean?

Spain already has to deal with the effects of mass tourism in popular coastal resorts and cities, including pressure on accommodation, transport and public spaces. Adding roughly 13 million international visitors a year to the 96.8 million recorded in 2025, would put further pressure on destinations already struggling to balance tourism with everyday life for residents. The Deloitte and Google forecast does not predict exactly where those additional tourists would stay or how individual Spanish destinations would cope with the increase.

It is a projection based on long-term tourism trends, rather than a guarantee that Spain will reach the figure. For now, France remains ahead. But if the forecast proves accurate, Spain could take the title of world’s most visited country in 2040, at a time when the country is already welcoming almost 100 million international visitors every year.