Ever wonder what the most visited cities in the world are?
MasterCard has come out with its 2014 Global Destination Cities Index. This lengthy report shares a variety of information related to the 20 most visited cities based on International Overnight Visitors.
According to the Mastercard index, the amount of visitors a city receives impacts it greatly in terms of “business, social and cultural perspectives”. The spending made by visitors is very important in regards to “hospitality, retail, transport, sports and cultural industries among many others”.
The Index, now in its fourth year ranks 132 of the most important destination cities in the world. While the Index then focuses on the Top 20, I decided to include the top 9 since I’ve been to all of them! (I’ve also been to 13 of the top 14.)
Here they are:
- London
- Bangkok
- Paris
- Singapore
- Dubai
- New York
- Istanbul
- Kuala Lumpur
- Hong Kong
The map and list above shows the top 20 most visited cities along with the expected amount of visitors (in millions) for 2014.
If you check out the MasterCard Index you can also find charts showing things like:
- Overnight Visitors Arrivals per City Resident with Dubai showing an overwhelming lead of 4.8 visitors per resident.
- Charts showing Top 10 Destination Cities By Overnight Spend for Asia, Europe, Latin America, Middle East & Africa and for North America.
- The Air Hub Index shows the “Power of Connectivity”.
The report is over 40 pages long so I skimmed over most of it and read the sections which were of interest to me. If you’re interested in checking out the MasterCard Index, you can do so here.
I first came across the index in an article from Yahoo Travel which just talked about the most visited cities. Check out that article here.
