Spanish travelers over-index on night tours, Italians on political history, French on art and food, and Latin American travelers on architecture
ZUG, SWITZERLAND, October 7, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — FREETOUR.com, the global marketplace for free walking tours and local travel experiences, has released a new analysis of more than 337,000 tour selections made by over 264,000 travelers from 51 countries and territories during a six-month period in 2026. The data shows that travelers may visit the same cities, but often choose markedly different versions of them.
The strongest data signal came from Italian travelers, who selected experiences focused on politics, war and 20th-century history 66% more often than the FREETOUR.com platform average. Travelers from Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Colombia collectively showed the strongest preference for architecture and design experiences, booking them 59% more often than average.
The findings are based on anonymized and aggregated booking data and identify relative patterns within the FREETOUR.com user base. They are not intended to describe every traveler from a country or to explain why an individual makes a particular choice.
“The interesting finding is not simply that travelers book history, food or architecture tours. It is how certain experiences stand out when we compare each market against the same platform-wide baseline. These differences tell us something about observed booking behavior, but they should not be mistaken for fixed national preferences or explanations of why people travel,” said Jürgen Müller, Data & Analytics Specialist at FREETOUR.com and author of the study.
“Travelers do not simply choose a destination — they choose the version of that destination that matters most to them,” said Alexandra Dubakova, Chief Marketing Officer at FREETOUR.com. “A city can offer history, food, architecture, art and nightlife at the same time, but booking behavior shows that different source markets consistently prioritise different layers. This is valuable intelligence for destination marketers, experience providers and tourism businesses that want to communicate with visitors more precisely.”
What the Data Shows
Across the full dataset, history and heritage tours remained the largest thematic category, accounting for 30.7% of analyzed selections. Iconic sights and city highlights followed at 16.6%, while local-life and hidden-gem experiences accounted for 11.6%. However, the greatest differences appeared in specialised themes, where national booking patterns diverged from the platform-wide average.
Spanish travelers showed a clear preference for late-day discovery. Evening and nighttime experiences accounted for 3.48% of their selections, compared with 2.52% across the platform, producing a +38% relative index. Religious and Jewish-heritage routes also performed above average among Spanish users, as did mystery and legend-themed experiences.
French travelers showed two equally strong cultural signals. Art, street art and music experiences were booked 43% more often than average, while food, market and tasting tours were selected 41% more often. Ancient history and archaeology also showed elevated interest, indicating a wider preference for creative, culinary and heritage-rich city experiences.
German travelers selected food and tasting experiences 25% more often than the platform average. Art and street-art tours indexed 14% higher, while local-life and hidden-gem formats were 11% above average, suggesting a particularly strong appetite for experiences connected to contemporary local culture rather than only landmark sightseeing.
British travelers did not conform to the typical tourism stereotype of choosing pubs and nightlife first. Instead, they over-indexed on ancient history and archaeology by 18%, food experiences by 17%, and politics, war and 20th-century history by 16%. Pub and nightlife tours, meanwhile, indexed roughly 15% below the platform average.
US travelers demonstrated a strong architecture and design signal, selecting such experiences 20% more often than average. They also showed above-average interest in castles and royal history, as well as food and local-market tours.
Italian travelers produced the report’s largest single-market difference. Political and 20th-century history represented 3.99% of their bookings versus 2.41% across the platform. They also showed higher-than-average demand for local-life and hidden-gem experiences, ancient history and archaeology, and myths and legends.
Read the full study: How Cultural Travel Interests Differ Across Countries, published on the FREETOUR.com blog, includes the complete findings, country-level comparisons and methodology.
Author: Jürgen Müller, Data & Analytics Specialist at FREETOUR.com
About FREETOUR.com
FREETOUR.com is the original free tour platform, a global marketplace for free walking tours and local travel experiences, connecting travelers with local guides in 149 countries. The platform supports independent travelers with locally led city experiences, flexible booking options and destination discovery tools.
Jürgen Müller
FREETOUR.com
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