Bangkok is poised to become the world’s most popular city this year for international travellers for the second year in a row, according to the report of financial services corporation Mastercard.
In its Mastercard’s 2017 Global Destination Cities Index released this week, it said Bangkok is set to welcome nearly 20.2 million International overnight visitors this year, or 4% increase from last year.
London retained its No. 2 title for the second year running, with projected arrivals topping 20 million in 2017.
Paris is in third place with 16.1 million visitors forecast.
Dubai, coming in at No. 4, expects to see just over 16 million international visitors in 2017.
Singapore rounds out the Top 5 for arrivals, with nearly 13.5 million international visitors expected in 2017.
The Mastercard Index of Global Destination Cities 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 in 2016, and gives visitor and passenger growth forecasts for 2017.
This Index and the accompanying reports are not based on Mastercard volumes or transactional data
Top 10 destination cities are:
1. Bangkok, Thailand — 19.41 million visitors in 2016 (20.19 million forecast for 2017)
2. London, England — 19.06 million visitors in 2016 (20.01 million forecast for 2017)
3. Paris, France — 15.45 million visitors in 2016 (16.13 million forecast for 2017)
4. Dubai, UAE — 14.87 million visitors in 2016 (16.01 million forecast for 2017)
5. Singapore — 13.11 million visitors in 2016 (13.45 million forecast for 2017)
6. New York, USA — 12.70 million visitors in 2016 (12.36 million forecast for 2017)
7. Seoul, South Korea — 12.39 million visitors in 2016 (12.44 million forecast for 2017)
8. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia — 11.28 million visitors in 2016 (12.08 million forecast for 2017)
9. Tokyo, Japan — 11.15 million visitors in 2016 (12.51 million forecast for 2017)
10. Istanbul, Turkey — 9.16 million visitors in 2016 (9.24 million forecast for 2017)
The post Bangkok comes on top of 10 most popular cities for international travelers in 2017 appeared first on Thai PBS English News.
