Taylor Swift's concert drew 120 thousand people to Milan's San Siro stadium for two Italian dates, with 14% of them being Americans. It was much cheaper for them to take an intercontinental flight, stay and eat in Italy for a few days, and then return on another intercontinental flight than to attend the concert in the United States. Significant financial savings and incalculable environmental costs. The surge in American tourists, though, began long before Taylor Swift and has been impacting all Mediterranean nations for quite a while. According to the National Institute of Statistics, American travelers to Spain increased by 14.6% in the first five months of the year, from 1.31 million in May 2019 to 1.47 million in 2024. The numbers are even more robust in Portugal, where US tourists have increased by 34.2% in a single year, the fastest growth rate among all foreign countries of origin. Tourists visiting Greece from the United States increased by nearly 30%, from 1.09 million in 2022 to 1.4 million in 2023. An ideal year for the entire continent, indeed. According to a recent report by the European Travel Commission, international tourists will spend €800 billion in Europe this year. "Americans are by far the tourists who spend the most, stay in luxury hotels, eat in the best restaurants and in many circumstances show that they do not have a real spending budget", according to analysts from the industry.
|