Asia-Pacific Rises in Ranks of Top 20 Global Destination Cities

Asia-Pacific Rises in Ranks of Top 20 Global Destination Cities
Sep 02, 2014 By eChinacities.com

Editor’s Note: This article was translated from ifeng.com, and discusses the MasterCard Global Cities Destination Index in July, exploring both the importance and the affects of tourism in Pacific-Asian cities, focusing on those within China. It also concludes that if travel between Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China’s cities were not classified as international, none of China’s cities would be ranked in such high positions.

MasterCard  released their Global Cities Destination Index in July outlining the 2014 forecast index for world travel destinations. Out of the top 20 destinations and tourist cities, ten are located in the Asia-Pacific region, eight are in Europe and two are in the Americas. Hong Kong, Taipei and Shanghai- three major international tourist cities- are among the highest ranked cities in the Greater China region. Although not in the overall top 20, Beijing is ranked tenth in the Asia-Pacific region for international tourism cities. National to/br>

Hong Kong Skyline
Photo: baidu.com

A city’s size, income and amount of money earned through tourists and international tourism are good measures of its overall economic, social, cultural and ecological environment. The amount of tourism income earned by a particular city also marks its amount of international influence and image, and it is an important indicator of soft power.

The recent list of forecasted travel destinations released by MasterCard is copied below and includes per capita tourism spending in the top 20 tourist destination cities as well as in Beijing.

Rank

Destination City

Region

Number of Tourists (Million)

Revenue from Tourism (Hundred Million USD)

Per Capita Tourism Spending (USD)

1

London

England

18.69

193

1032.6

2

Bangkok

Thailand

16.42

130

791.7

3

Paris

France

15.57

170

1091.8

4

Singapore

Singapore

12.47

143

1146.8

5

Dubai

UAE

11.95

109

912.1

6

New York

USA

11.81

186

1574.1

7

Istanbul

Turkey

11.6

94

810.3

8

Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia

10.81

81

749.3

9

Hong Kong

Chinese Hong Kong

8.84

83

938.9

10

Seoul

South Korea

8.63

115

1332.6

11

Barcelona

Spain

7.37

112

1519.7

12

Amsterdam

The Netherlands

7.23

44

608.6

13

Milan

Italy

6.82

53

780.6

14

Rome

Italy

6.79

56

824.7

15

Taipei

Chinese Taiwan

6.29

108

1717

16

Shanghai

China

6.09

53

870.3

17

Vienna

Austria

6.05

56

925.6

18

Riyadh

Saudi Arabia

5.59

41

733.5

19

Tokyo

Japan

5.38

74

1375.5

20

Lima

Peru

5.11

18

352.3

 

Beijing

China

4.5

48

1066.7

The list of MasterCard Global Destination Cities ranks the top twenty tourist destination cities in the world. The rankings show definitively that tourism in the Asia-Pacific region is on the rise and that the domination of European tourism has eased. Looking at the rankings by country, three of the cities are in China and two are in Italy while the rest of the countries only have one spot. Even though tourism to Mainland China has slowed slightly in the recent years, this has not affected the draw of Asia, and the region is still in the forefront of world tourism.

The table shows that Hong Kong, Taipei and Shanghai rank highly. The three cities are all major international tourist cities in the Greater China region. It is expected that tourism in Hong Kong, Taipei and Shanghai will experience a 7 to 9 percent increase in 2014 from the number of tourists in 2013. Out of the three major cities, Taipei is the only city to show growth in this area for four consecutive years.

London and Bangkok have battled it out for the top spot in recent years. In 2012 and 2013, Bangkok was ranked first in the world for number of tourists. However, because of recent civil unrest in Thailand, Bangkok has dropped down to the second spot. Despite this, Bangkok’s potential must not be underestimated. Once the region regains political stability, tourism will rise again and the city may be able to reclaim the number one seat from London. The Asia-Pacific region holds half of the cities in the top 20. In East Asia alone there are eight emerging tourist cities that have begun to compete with more historically traditional tourist destinations. There are some facets where the competition is more intense: for example, looking at per capita spending of tourists in a city or region. Taipei, Taiwan ranks as number one in this category with 1717 USD per capita. This is more than New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, Barcelona and other historically popular tourism cities. Taipei does not hold any of the world’s famous natural or cultural heritage sites, nor does it have the fashions of Nice, large well-known squares or streets. At first look the city is quite ordinary and it is mysterious why it has become such a popular tourist attraction.

According to a survey of tourists in Taiwan, the rate of overall satisfaction has been more than 92 percent. In 2011, it reached as high as 98 percent. 95 percent of respondents said that they would be willing to visit Taiwan again. One reason cited was the friendliness of the Taiwanese people. Looking at these results, it is not hard to see why so many are charmed by Taiwan.
It should be noted that much tourism to Hong Kong, Taipei, Shanghai and Beijing is due to the exchange of visitors between Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. This accounts for 70 percent of tourism to Hong Kong, about 40 percent to Taipei, 20 percent to Shanghai and about 15 percent to Beijing. Within the Greater China region, visits like this are only a short swim away.

Technically speaking, visits between countries within the Greater China region are not international visits and only tourists from other countries are international tourists. However, for statistical reasons, they are listed as international tourists on MasterCard’s rankings. If you do not count those from Greater China as international tourists, then Hong Kong, Taipei and Shanghai would not make the top 20 list and Beijing would not be in the top 10 in Asia. This is an important point which helps better explain the results of MasterCard’s findings. 

Source: ifeng.com

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Keywords: Shanghai Top Chinese Destinations Hong Kong Asia-Pacific MasterCard Tourism Ranking Taipei

3 Comments

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bill8899

What aboot Ottawa? No one likes Ottawa? hnqk

Sep 02, 2014 18:39 Report Abuse

bill8899

Interesting article.

Sep 02, 2014 14:01 Report Abuse

coineineagh

such a dilemma. thanks to taiwan and HK's status as different countries, some chinese cities made in in an international top20 ranking. china loves top20 lists. report as news? ignore? well, let's report with a caveat!

Sep 02, 2014 09:46 Report Abuse