London top destination city for 2014: study

A recent study of global destinations states that London, England continues to draw tourists – and tourism dollars – in droves.

The finding was part of Mastercard’s 2014 Global Destination Cities Index, which estimates that approximately three billion passengers worldwide flew on commercial airlines in 2013.

Based on 132 international cities, the study, now in its fourth year, ranked the top 10 cities for each continent by desirability as a destination as well as the dollar amounts spent in each city by overnight visitors.

London, Bangkok and Paris were the top three out of the study’s top 20 destination cities, with London estimated to see more than 18.69 million international visitors in 2014. The British capital also topped the lists of both Europe’s top 10 destination cities as well as the top 20 cities worldwide for guest spending, with the study estimating that travellers will inject more than $19.27 billion U.S. into London’s economy this year, followed by New York at $18.57 billion. The study notes that both London and Bangkok have closely vied for these top spots in recent years.

Other findings from the study include:

- On the top 10 list for North American destination cities, Toronto ranked fourth behind Miami, Los Angeles and New York. Vancouver and Montreal ranked at sixth and ninth respectively.

- Dubai boasts the highest ratio of visitors to permanent residents at 4.8 to one, up from 4.2 to one in 2009.

- Istanbul was ranked number one in the study’s top 10 of fastest growing destination cities based on their ‘air hub index,’ measuring a city’s connectivity to other locations via air travel.

The full study is available at www.mastercard.com.