London is the most popular tourist city in the world, at least according to MasterCard's Global Destination Cities Index. The Thai capital Bangkok drops to second place due to the political unrest.
It is the fourth year in a row that MasterCard has compiled its Global Destination Cities Index: a list of the 132 most important destinations in the world. MasterCard estimates the number of international tourists for each city and can deduce the most popular destinations.
This year's list is led by London, which is expected to receive an estimated 2014 million tourists in 18,69, a whopping eight percent more compared to last year. London – which was also number one in 2011 and 2012 – had to give up its place to Bangkok last year, but the Thai capital has seen its number of visitors fall by eleven percent to 16,42 million visitors due to the turbulent political situation.
Paris remains in third place for the fourth year in a row with 15,57 million visitors, a growth of only 1,8 percent. The top five is completed with Singapore and Dubai. In places 6 to 10 we see New York, Istanbul, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and Seoul.
When we look at the changes in Europe, we see that Amsterdam has grown more than Milan and rises to fifth place at the expense of the Italian fashion city. Our capital saw the number of tourists rise to 7,23 million, while Milan remained stuck at 6,82 million visitors.
Top 20 most popular tourist cities
This is the full top twenty of the Global Destination Cities Index:
1. London
2.Bangkok
3. Paris
4. Singapore
5.Dubai
6. New York
7.Istanbul
8. Kuala Lumpur
9. Hong Kong
10. Seoul
11 Barcelona
12.Amsterdam
13. Milan
14. Roma
15.Taipei
16. Shanghai
17. Vienna
18. Riyadh
19. Tokyo
20. Lima