The ranking of the most popular destinations gets shuffled by covid19.

The health crisis has completely changed the way people travel. This is due not only to the travel restrictions imposed by certain countries which require specific formalities to enter their country, but also to changes in destination preferences.
The trends are also changing for expatriation, again guided by different desires as well as by local or international political crises and by changes in visa policies. This article gathers different rankings established on different criteria.

Top destinations for travelers

The World Tourism Organization's ranking:

Here is a ranking of the 10 most visited countries by international tourists in 2018 and in 2021 according to the World Tourism Organization (WTO):

The Euromonitor ranking

Euromonitor is the world's leading independent provider of strategic market research. In 2021, Europe had eight cities in the top 10, with the French capital Paris in first place. This is according to Euromonitor's study, which compares the attractiveness of several cities around the world using the following criteria: the state of tourism infrastructure, safety, the country's health situation and mobility; the top 10 ranking places Paris in first place as the most attractive city in the world for 2021.

Top destinations for expatriates

Geo's ranking

The international survey conducted by Geo.fr magazine focuses on the quality of life of expatriates and the most attractive cities for expatriates. The "Expat City ranking 2021" focuses on the quality of urban life based on 25 criteria, including: cost of living and housing, quality of public transportation, the possibility of making friends and safety.

The HSBC Global Expatriate Survey:

HSBC is one of the world's largest financial services and banking groups. Every year, the company conducts extensive international surveys on current topics. To obtain the ranking results of the 10 favorite countries for an expatriation project, HSBC conducted a survey with expatriates from 46 countries, who shared their experiences and opinions. Among them, a little more than half those interviewed by HSBC have a full-time job. The rest are self-employed, entrepreneurs, business owners or retired.

The Health For Expats ranking:

This is the ranking of the most popular destinations for French expatriates on our online health insurance comparison service:

Several factors explain these important variations. China, Singapore or Australia, did not give any more visas during this period. For Chile and Brazil, it is the political and economic instability that has strongly played against them. Conversely, Mexico and Spain have become safe havens for many expatriates and Mauritius and the Emirates have created new types of visas to attract expatriates or digital nomads and thus replace the tourists who had abandoned these destinations.

In 2022, we see several new trends:

Countries such as Canada and New Zealand, are trying to attract medical and para-medical professions in large numbers by facilitating diploma equivalencies and giving them priority on visas.

On the other hand, French retirees are in financial difficulty in many countries, due to the decline of the euro against the US dollar or other local currencies. As their pensions are paid in Euros, a 10% drop in the European currency often impacts their purchasing power while expenses increased by more than 30%.