Why do Europeans have a double standard when evaluating the United States?

[Proto]

There are a lot of people who are principally opposed to U.S. hegemony, and so are more than glad to turn a blind eye to the sins of the U.S.'s enemies. See 'leftists' who romanticize Assad and Zacharchenko and 'conservatives' who see Putin's Russia as a model.

I can't say I know many of the former but I know a lot of people in the latter category. Well, for better or worse, Russian conservatism is more traditional than American conservatism is.

Putin claims he is a conservative, which means total control of mass media, all his close friends being billionaires, no free elections. Yes, this is traditional Russian conservatism.

[Del Tachi]

12 million Americans visit Europe each year; France and Spain alone have about 170 million visitors each year. In fact, outside a small number of larger centres, American tourists are far and few between, especially in comparison to say Australians or the Brits

Not sure where you got the 12 million figure from, but Americans generated 30.7 million unique trips to Europe in 2017.  While (predictably) the largest source market for EU tourism is domestic, the United States is the single-largest non-EU source market with 76 million overnight stays a year.  American tourists also make longer trips to higher-cost areas than domestic tourists, thus making them the most valuable tourists to the European travel economy "per head".  Also none of these statistics include the economic impact generated by the over 180,000 American students who study abroad in Europe annually. 

[Omega21]

12 million Americans visit Europe each year; France and Spain alone have about 170 million visitors each year. In fact, outside a small number of larger centres, American tourists are far and few between, especially in comparison to say Australians or the Brits

Not sure where you got the 12 million figure from, but Americans generated 30.7 million unique trips to Europe in 2017.  While (predictably) the largest source market for EU tourism is domestic, the United States is the single-largest non-EU source market with 76 million overnight stays a year.  American tourists also make longer trips to higher-cost areas than domestic tourists, thus making them the most valuable tourists to the European travel economy "per head".  Also none of these statistics include the economic impact generated by the over 180,000 American students who study abroad in Europe annually. 

You do realize that a lot of those students pay like 350-700 Euro per semester (I pay 700 and am not an EU citizen, so in the same group as Americans) and that most of their tuition is being paid by the state?

Example (University of Vienna)
Budget   € 544 million
Students   94,000

The fee for all 3rd country students (means anyone outside EU) is 750, so yeah, that math is not going to work out. (The student number includes EU students, who do not pay anything. We are talking about Americans, so the deficit would be smaller than now since they would pay something at least, but it would still be far below the actual cost of running it)

I know that it would be considered crazy in the US to offer almost free University for every 3rd country student, but that's how it is. (There are documentaries about USA students in Berlin who pay almost nothing, and cite that as the reason for them coming here).

In the end, if they leave after finishing their degree, they are a net loss.

 

Also, read the post I made yesterday. The Swiss have 60% (45 Mil) as many hotel nights as Americans (from a country of 8.5 Million), and no, the Swiss are not poorer than Americans, if anything they can afford to stay in better accommodation.

In total, Americans make up 2,5% of night stays out of the total 3,1 Billion. Let's say they spend 3x as much as anyone else (which is unlikely since the Swiss are on par or better in terms of income and purchasing power) and say that this 2,5% of nights actually translates to 7.5% of the total spending.

Summed up, the Tourism sector GDP would be decreased by 7,5%, not the overall GDP, as tourism makes up 10,6% of the overall GDP per the info you provided.



I do not have anything against America, I simply don't want untrue info being spread.

[Del Tachi]

12 million Americans visit Europe each year; France and Spain alone have about 170 million visitors each year. In fact, outside a small number of larger centres, American tourists are far and few between, especially in comparison to say Australians or the Brits

Not sure where you got the 12 million figure from, but Americans generated 30.7 million unique trips to Europe in 2017.  While (predictably) the largest source market for EU tourism is domestic, the United States is the single-largest non-EU source market with 76 million overnight stays a year.  American tourists also make longer trips to higher-cost areas than domestic tourists, thus making them the most valuable tourists to the European travel economy "per head".  Also none of these statistics include the economic impact generated by the over 180,000 American students who study abroad in Europe annually. 

You do realize that a lot of those students pay like 350-700 Euro per semester (I pay 700 and am not an EU citizen, so in the same group as Americans) and that most of their tuition is being paid by the state?

Example (University of Vienna)
Budget   € 544 million
Students   94,000

The fee for all 3rd country students (means anyone outside EU) is 750, so yeah, that math is not going to work out. (The student number includes EU students, who do not pay anything. We are talking about Americans, so the deficit would be smaller than now since they would pay something at least, but it would still be far below the actual cost of running it)

I know that it would be considered crazy in the US to offer almost free University for every 3rd country student, but that's how it is. (There are documentaries about USA students in Berlin who pay almost nothing, and cite that as the reason for them coming here).

In the end, if they leave after finishing their degree, they are a net loss.

 

Also, read the post I made yesterday. The Swiss have 60% (45 Mil) as many hotel nights as Americans (from a country of 8.5 Million), and no, the Swiss are not poorer than Americans, if anything they can afford to stay in better accommodation.

In total, Americans make up 2,5% of night stays out of the total 3,1 Billion. Let's say they spend 3x as much as anyone else (which is unlikely since the Swiss are on par or better in terms of income and purchasing power) and say that this 2,5% of nights actually translates to 7.5% of the total spending.

Summed up, the Tourism sector GDP would be decreased by 7,5%, not the overall GDP, as tourism makes up 10,6% of the overall GDP per the info you provided.



I do not have anything against America, I simply don't want untrue info being spread.

1.  The bulk of the economic impact that American students have in Europe is not due to tuition fees.  It's the money that they spend on housing, entertainment, travel, etc. during their stays.

2.  You're assuming that Americans who travel to Europe look like America as a whole, which is certainly not true.  American who travel to Europe are definitely wealthier than Europeans who travel within Europe.  The inverse is also patently true:  Europeans who travel to the United States are bound to be more well-off than Americans who travel within the United States.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

I don't think this has actually been the case for the last 10 years since Obama was elected, and certainly not since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

[Former President tack50]

I actually live in a very touristy area in Spain. In fact it's the most touristy region not just in Spain but in all of the EU apparently, in terms of nights spent:

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Tourism_statistics_at_regional_level

Almost all tourists here come from Europe, mostly from the UK, the Netherlands, other regions of Spain, Germany and Scandinavia. I barely see any non EU tourists whatsoever, the only country that even makes a dent in statistics is Switzerland.

But non-EU non-Swiss tourism accounts for only around 3.5% of all tourists here

http://www.grancanaria.com/turismo/nl/area-profesional/informes-y-estadisticas/estadisticas/

Then again tourism here is a "beach and sun" kind of tourism for the most part, I imagine most Americans looking for that simply stay in the US and go to Hawaii/California/Florida or wherever, or go to the Caribbean or Mexico.

Granted, this is all anectodal evidence from just one place. But in most tourist destinations in Europe Americans are barely a dent, even within "non European" tourists. However, the landscape of tourism is very different in Paris than in say, the Mediterranean.

[parochial boy]

12 million Americans visit Europe each year; France and Spain alone have about 170 million visitors each year. In fact, outside a small number of larger centres, American tourists are far and few between, especially in comparison to say Australians or the Brits

Not sure where you got the 12 million figure from, but Americans generated 30.7 million unique trips to Europe in 2017.  While (predictably) the largest source market for EU tourism is domestic, the United States is the single-largest non-EU source market with 76 million overnight stays a year.  American tourists also make longer trips to higher-cost areas than domestic tourists, thus making them the most valuable tourists to the European travel economy "per head".  Also none of these statistics include the economic impact generated by the over 180,000 American students who study abroad in Europe annually. 

https://travel.trade.gov/view/m-2017-O-001/index.html

Your own government suggests the number is 16m in 2017; my quick googling came up with 12m because it was 2016 statistics. Your number is wrong presumably because lots of people visit multiple countries on one trip.

Anyway I don't have much else to add beyond what tack and omega said already. Outside a few major centres, Americans are barely a factor even in many European tourist destinations, so claiming that American tourists contribute 10% of the continent's gdp is going to seem completely absurd to those of us who actually live here. and I can't be bothered to research it but I suspect the Chinese, Indian and African international student contingents are much larger than the US one (and people on erasmus, who are probably the majority of foreigners at most European universities)

You have to understand that a part of the reason you are getting this reaction is because you are playing into the stereotype of the arrogant American who vastly overestimates his own country's importance out of ignorance of what actually goes on in the rest of the world.

[Proto]

You should not forget about the US military deployments scattered all over the world. The number of the US military in Europe is about 65,000.