The capital of Thailand, Bangkok, tops Mastercard’s annual Global Destination Cities Index on overnight visitors for the 4th time in a row.
In 2018, the city saw 22.78 million international visitors, the majority of them from China, Japan, South Korea, India, and the United Kingdom. The famous attractions include the Grand Palace, temples like Wat Mahathat Yuwaratrangsarit and street food on Khao San Road. Paris and London took 2nd and 3rd place on the list of popular cities, with more than 19 million visitors each, and Dubai (15.93 million) and Singapore (14.67 million) rounded out the top five. Only one U.S. city, New York, made the list of the top 20 most popular cities by overnight visitors. Cities in the Asia-Pacific region dominate much of the list, in large part because of the growth of travelers from mainland China, according to the report.
The index, which has been produced by Mastercard since 2009, doesn’t only track overnight visitors. It looks at how much they spend in a destination, too. For 2018, international overnight visitors spent the most money in Dubai, averaging $553 per day, for a total of $30.82 billion. And Bangkok? Travelers spent just $184.
Here, a list of the world’s most popular cities by overnight visitors:
Bangkok, Thailand: 22.8 million
Paris, France: 19.1 million
London, United Kingdom: 19.1 million
Dubai, United Arab Emirates: 15.9 million
Singapore: 14.7 million
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: 13.8 million
New York City, United States of America: 13.6 million
Istanbul, Turkey: 13.4 million
Tokyo, Japan: 12.9 million
Antalya, Turkey: 12.4 million