London edges Bangkok as No.1 tourist city

By Asad Qureshi


LONDON has edged out Bangkok to retain its title as the world's most popular tourist city, with 18.8 million visitors forecast to stay at least one night this year.
THE British capital headed the MasterCard Global Destinations Cities Index for the fifth time in seven years.
Bangkok topped the index, which ranks the 132 most visited cities around the world, for the two years that London missed out. Three of the four fastest-growing destinations were in Asia: Colombo in Sri Lanka, Chengdu in China, and Osaka in Japan. Paris, with an expected 16 million visitors, and Dubai, with 14.3 million, ranked third and fourth in the list. London also topped the list for annual visitor spending with $US20.2 billion ($A25.98 billion), followed by New York ($US17.4 billion) and Paris ($US16.6 billion). Tourists in Bangkok are forecast to spend $US12.4 billion this year, MasterCard said.