American continent holds only third rank in world tourist destinations, after Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, tourism in the Americas is nevertheless an important phenomenon, with 210.9 million international arrivals for 2017, representing 16% of world tourist arrivals. More importantly still, a number of American countries, such as the US1 and Canada, boast highly developed home tourism. Overall, tourist movement has a powerful structural influence on economies, societies and territories throughout the Americas. However, on the scale of the entire continent, the tourist development of areas is, for geo-historical, cultural, economic and political reasons, a patchy, unequal process. The majority of tourist arrivals is concentrated in North America, with 137 million arrivals for 2017, whereas, for the same period, there were only 36.7 million in South America, 26 million in the Caribbean and 11.2 million in Central America.
