The 10 least visited countries in the world

Investvine has compiled a list of least visited countries worldwide by tourism numbers, and, guess what, ASEAN nations are not among them.

Here is the list of countries shunned by most travelers due to safety reasons, poor accessibility or other reasons (annually, latest available figures).

Comoros: 15,000 tourists
Although the Comoros boasts many natural resources for tourism, such as its beaches and marine environment, the country does not have as strong a tourist industry as its regional competitors Réunion, Mauritius and Seychelles. Its weak tourism industry is mainly due to its insecure political climate, with many political upheavals over the past three decades deterring tourists from choosing the Comoros as a prime destination.

Sao Tomé and Principe: 8,000 tourists
The annual number of international tourist arrivals on the African two-island nation in the Gulf of Guinea was last reported at 8,000. The impoverished former Portuguese colony attracts a small number of sport fishers and people interested in basic eco-tourism. The island has a direct flight connection with Air Portugal to Lisbon.

Turkmenistan: 7,000 tourists
The Central Asian country could have 10-fold the tourism numbers but is suffering from an underdeveloped tourism industry and the fact that few people actually now that Turkmenistan exists. There are some potential touristic hot spots, like the underground Lake Kovata, the ruins of Merv, Kunyaurgench and Dekhistan, the crater in Darvaza called “The Gates of Hell” and the Dinosaur Plateau in Koytendag.

Equatorial Guinea: 6,000 tourists
Because Equatorial Guinea has undergone many years of international isolation, its tourism industry is very undeveloped, with limited hotel space available in the main cities of Malabo and Bata. Attractions include the Spanish colonial architecture of Malabo, beaches and tropical rain forests. A tourist visa is hard to get, probably best in neighbouring countries such as Cameroon or Gabon.

Marshall Islands: 5,000 tourists
The Marshall Islands group have been home to an US army post since 1964. A number of islands are off-limits to tourism and even to locals due to US military presence. Bikini and Enewetak are former US nuclear test sites. Kwajalein, the famous World War II battleground, is now used as a US missile test range. All this makes the islands not overly attractive for leisure tourists, and they are expensive as well.

Kiribati: 4,700 tourists
The severely poverty-stricken island group in the Central Pacific saw a boom in travelers on New Year’s Eve 2000 when it was the first location in the world to experience the new millennium. Since then, tourist arrivals have dropped to “normal”. Main attractions such as sandy beaches are located on Christmas Island, but the place can only be reached after a long and tiring flight using a combination of local Pacific airlines.

Afghanistan: 4,000 tourists
The governmental Afghan Tourism Organisation estimates that only around 4,000 tourists visit the country each year. If Afghanistan is to stand on its own economically, many hope it will be because of tourists coming to see an ancient culture steeped in 5,000 years of civilisation and brimming with historic treasures, gorgeous landscapes and rare wildlife. However, security and safety issues make traveling in Afghanistan an expensive exercise because it is not advised to move around the country without heavily armed bodyguards and armoured vehicles.

Tuvalu: 1,200 tourists
Tuvalu’s is the world’s third-least populous sovereign state in the world after Vatican City and Nauru. The few tourists head to the main island of Funafuti where some basic touristic infrastructure can be found. Being one of the most remote countries in the world, it is hard and expensive to reach. Instead, Tuvalu makes money by leasing its Internet top-level domain .tv and its telephone country code +688 which is seen as a lucky number by some.

Somalia: 500 tourists
The most dangerous, deadly, corrupt and what not country in the world, Somalia, is visited by just a few hundred travelers a year, most of which remain in the safer northern regions of Puntland and Somaliland instead of looking for nightlife and fun in Mogadishu. It is possible to enter Somaliland from Djibouti per private transport. There is no touristic infrastructure to speak of apart from very few hotels in Somaliland’s capital Hargeisa and in Puntland’s commercial capital of Bosaso. In Mogadishu, safety in hotels cannot be guaranteed, not even and despite its name, in the “Peace Hotel”, which has been described by the Time Magazine as “Best Hotel in Hell”, what ever that means.

Nauru: 200 tourists
The isolated Western Pacific island nation lacks tourist facilities and is connected to the outside world by just one international flight per week on Air Nauru to Brisbane, Australia. Nauru is the world’s smallest republic, covering just 21 square kilometers, and there is not much to do apart from bathing, fishing, diving or walking around the island in half a day. Other, involuntary “tourists” are a few dozen people held in the Australian-run infamous Nauru Detention Center, asylum seekers and boat people that have been denied to set foot on Australian soil, among them many Myanmar refugees. The center has been criticised by Amnesty International for its inhuman conditions but it is one of the largest sources of foreign income for Nauru.