Hong Kong has been named the most popular spot in the world for international visitors, Gulf News reported Thursday. It outpaced major metropolitan cities across the globe, which, as a whole, saw continued growth in arrivals from international visitors.
The report cited Euromonitor International, a market research firm that tracks the most-visited cities in the world. Gulf News, a publication in the United Arab Emirates, pointed out that Dubai, the most populous city in the UAE, outpaced the United States’ top tourism city, New York. Dubai was the seventh most popular city for international tourists, with some 14.2 million visiting the city in 2015, the latest year released by Euromonitor. That represented an about 8 percent uptick over the year prior.
New York City also saw modest growth in total international visitors, although the increase was just 0.6 percent. In total, some 12.2 million international tourists came to the city that never sleeps, good enough to make it the ninth most-visited city in the world. It was the only U.S. city to crack the top ten. Euromonitor got its figures by tracking international arrivals.
Hong Kong was far-and-away the most visited city in the world, according to Euromonitor. Some 26.7 million international tourists visited the city, far outpacing second-place Bangkok, Thailand at 18.7 million. Bangkok experienced the highest growth in visitors among the top ten cities, with the number of international arrivals there increasing by 10 percent from 2014 to 2015.
Overall, visits to the most popular cities remained popular despite some struggles across the tourism industry. “Top cities outperformed global travel flows, registering growth of 5.5 percent in international arrivals compared to 2014, showing the resilience of global cities as travel destinations,” said Wouter Geerts, Euromonitor International travel analyst, according to Gulf News.
The top ten most-visited cities according to Euromonitor were, in order, Hong Kong; Bangkok; London; Singapore; Paris; Macua, Macau; Dubai; Istanbul; New York and Kuala Lampur, Malaysia.
The U.S.’ major cities typically attract the most visitors, bust some smaller cities have drawn rave review as well. The 2015 Travelers’ Choice awards for Destinations found that, in order, New York; Chicago; Charleston, South Carolina; Las Vegas; and Seattle, Washington were the top five destinations in the U.S., according to traveler reviews.
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