On June 3rd the annual MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index was released providing ranking of the 132 most visited cities around the world.
London was ranked as the top visited place for the fifth time in seven years according to the press release. 18 .82 million international visitor visited London in 2015. With a little difference in the number of visitors, Bangkok came in the second place with 18.24 million visitors. Bangkok also took place of the top of the index throughout its five years.
Paris came in the third place with 16.06 million visitors while Dubai was named in the fourth place with 14.26 million visitors. After Dubai Istanbul was ranked in the fifth place with 12.56 million visitors. The rest of the top 10 countries, in the same order, were New York with 12.27 million visitors, Singapore with 11.88 million visitors, Kuala Lumpur with 11.12 million visitors, Seoul with 10.35 million visitors, and finally Hong Kong that received 8.66 million visitors.
The press release added that in the Middle East and Africa region “Dubai continues to be one of the fastest growing cities in the global top ten while Abu Dhabi is the third fastest growing destination city overall between 2009 and 2015.”
The Index “delivers deeper understanding of how people move around the world and speaks to the importance and prominence of the world’s cities as homes, destinations and engines of growth.”
“This year’s study helps us understand just how interconnected the world’s cities are the significant role they play in connecting and empowering greater numbers of people than ever before,” said Ann Cairns, president of International Markets, MasterCard.
MasterCard is a “technology company in the global payment industry.” According to the company, they “operate the world’s fastest payments processing network, connecting consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses in more than 210 countries and territories.”
They explain that the index “ranks cities in terms of the number of their total international overnight visitor arrivals and the cross-border spending by these same visitors in the destination cities, and gives visitor and passenger growth forecasts for 2015.”
