Multiple European countries push to divert tourists to less popular cities

A report dated October 20, 2026 shows that France plans to increase annual international tourist spending to 100 billion euros by 2030, a 29% increase over last year, while not increasing visitor pressure on popular cities such as Paris; Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain and Croatia have also written tourist diversion into national strategies. But the report notes that tourists are increasingly choosing destinations through AI chatbots, and tourism boards are not yet able to get less popular regions into AI answers; after tourists arrive at hub airports, transferring to trains, connecting flights or rental cars remains complex, expensive and lacking guarantees.