
The fine people at Mastercard have completed this year’s report and the verdict is in. Bangkok, comes up the winner for the second year in a row. Mastercard’s 2017 Global Destination Cities takes a look at 132 cities and rank them according to visitor volume and spending. According to the survey, Bangkok is projected to have about 20.2 million international overnight visitors this year.
Although Dubai comes in 4th, with just over 16 million international overnight visitors, it places at the top in visitor spending. It’s 14.9 million international visitors spent a whopping $28.5 billion, with more than 10% growth forecast for 2017.
International overnight arrivals across all 132 destination cities have increased by more than 55% since 2009.

TOP 10 CITIES
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)