Most popular city for tourism

According to the Mastercard Global Destination Cities Index 2018, the most popular city in the world for tourism is Bangkok, Thailand, which received an estimated 20,050,000 visitors over the course of the preceding year.

Bangkok has held the top spot in the global tourism rankings since 2015, when it took the title from London, UK. The city is particularly popular with Chinese tourists, who made up a little over a third of the city’s total visitor numbers.

While Bangkok receives the largest number of visitors, it does not have the highest revenue from tourism. The low cost of accommodation and food means that average visitor to Bangkok spends only $173 (£131) per day. In Dubai, by contrast, the average visitor burns through about $537 (£409) every day, bringing an estimated $29,700,000,000 (£22,650,600,000) in revenue to the city every year – compared with just $16,362,000,000 (£12,478,400,000) in Bangkok.