We have had our share of historic quibbles with our neighbours. A quote attributed to the 19th century British writer Douglas William Jerrold goes: “The best thing I know between France and England is the sea.” But from the early 20th century – before the onset of mass tourism – the entente has largely been cordiale, give or take the odd blip, and our holidaymakers have poured into France like no other overseas nation.
• Countries where tourists outnumber locals
These days the story is similar, although the numbers vary wildly – remember what they said about lies, damned lies, and statistics? According to the Foreign Office, 17 million British nationals go to France every year. Meanwhile the French authorities put it at around 12.5m, while our own Office of National Statistics (ONS) – which one would hope is the most reliable source – believes there were 8.8m visits (both leisure and business) made to the country in 2014.
In fact, if you take the ONS’s word for it, we now love Spain even more with their spreadsheets showing more than 12m Britons went there in 2014. That's a figure accepted by Abta, the association of travel agents and tour operators, who believe Spain was already proving more popular than France way back in 2002. But France will always be up there. As Abta spokesman Sean Tipton says, “Ever since the British starting heading overseas for their holidays, France has been among their favourite destinations… millions of UK holidaymakers still head off over or under the channel each year.”
We have had our share of historic quibbles with our neighbours. A quote attributed to the 19th century British writer Douglas William Jerrold goes: “The best thing I know between France and England is the sea.” But from the early 20th century – before the onset of mass tourism – the entente has largely been cordiale, give or take the odd blip, and our holidaymakers have poured into France like no other overseas nation.• Countries where tourists outnumber localsThese days the story is similar, although the numbers vary wildly – remember what they said about lies, damned lies, and statistics? According to the Foreign Office, 17 million British nationals go to France every year. Meanwhile the French authorities put it at around 12.5m, while our own Office of National Statistics (ONS) – which one would hope is the most reliable source – believes there were 8.8m visits (both leisure and business) made to the country in 2014.In fact, if you take the ONS’s word for it, we now love Spain even more with their spreadsheets showing more than 12m Britons went there in 2014. That's a figure accepted by Abta, the association of travel agents and tour operators, who believe Spain was already proving more popular than France way back in 2002. But France will always be up there. As Abta spokesman Sean Tipton says, “Ever since the British starting heading overseas for their holidays, France has been among their favourite destinations… millions of UK holidaymakers still head off over or under the channel each year.”
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