Fresh from newspaper:

...France stands #1 travel destination but NOT on the tourism revenue. (how come?)

So it's launched campaign to 'rebrand' France, a place already considered a dreamland by would-be travelers across the globe!
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Does snyone know what it means?

If you think we should care then you need to provide more context, and a link to that article. Travel is not just done for touristic purposes, so maybe that travel statistic includes trips made for business, for diplomatic visits, for academic study reasons, for crossborder shopping trips, for family visits etc. and they all add up to a nr. 1 statistic but not counting only tourist travel?

Besides, with the Schengen border-control laxity, how did they count the trips to arrive at that statistic? I don't know, and from what little you provide A) we can't really know and B) I'm not sure it matters a hill of beans.

Things like rebranding are done for marketing reasons, what else is new?

I do not have a link to the Paper newspaper, sorry.

I omitted little:
'France stands #1 travel destination but NOT on the tourism revenue, to the chagrin of the country's tourism authority'

That is all it was - small square of info.
Signed 'AP' - Associated Press I suppose.

Tourists at hotels, campsites and even in holiday rentals are registered, so they would know how many tourists visit, even from Schengen lands.
Because most of the visitors are from other European countries they don't spend much money in France, staying at campsites and holiday cottages, bringing food from home, self catering, and just enjoying the local are/weather. Therefore they do not contribute so much to the total tourism revenue. Which is why it is most popular in numbers, but not in revenue.

hetismij, are you making this up as you go? Do you have a study you can quote?

Well I can tell you that France is number one holiday destination for the Dutch, who are well known for not spending much money. It is also extremely popular with Belgians, British and Scandinavians. Camping and staying in holiday homes are very popular means of holidaying within Europe.
Obviously there are far more Europeans visiting France than from other continents. The French like to holiday in France too. If you go self catering and stick to the caampsite and it's facilities you do not spend much money.
Visitors to France usually pay a tourism tax as part of the package, which is how the French know how many people have visited, and how long they stayed, as it is a pp/pd tax. The only ones they may not know about are those under 4 who are exempt from tax.
It is possible to rent a tent in France for very few Euros for a week even in high summer.

No doubt a search on Google would turn up the definitive figures, but I am not inclined to do that for you - you are the doubter here - you look them up.

The data's taken from the UN World Tourist Organisation.

Like all international comparisons, the numbers are calculated slightly differently from country to country. Lots of professional statisticians are paid to do things to the numbers to make them comparable: little is served by doubting their competence.

The underlying issue isn't quite as heitismij describes. Apart from skinflint Dutchpeople, France's visitor numbers are "inflated" by Northern Europeans driving through en route to the Med countries, staying just one or two nights, and by a fair amount of very short weekend breaks by Northern Europeans in Paris and the Riviera, which just don't have a parallel anywhere else in the world. So France gets an extraordinary number of visitors.

Spain and the US don't get as many. But since, except when £1=$2, practically no legal foreigner just goes to the US for a night, visitors spend more in each of those two countries than in France.

Can't see how "rebranding" helps though. If you're stuck in an A6 traffic jam in mid-July, the last thing in the world you're ever going to want to do is spend an extra night in France.