World’s most visited cities revealed as Paris overtakes London in popularity for the first time
THE World's most visited cities have been revealed and Bangkok has taken the top spot for the fourth consecutive year.
And for the first time, Paris has overtaken London in visitor numbers.
The list of most popular cities was compiled by Mastercard as part of its annual , which is now in its tenth edition.
The 2019 index is based on visitor numbers from 2018, and included a total of 200 cities.
According to the index, Bangkok received 22.78million visitors last year, followed by Paris with 19.1million and London with 19.09million.
They're followed by Dubai at number four, Singapore at number five, Kuala Lumpur at number six and New York at number seven.
The top ten is rounded out by Istanbul at number eight, Tokyo at number nine and Antalya at number ten.
Over the last decade, London, Paris and Bangkok have consistently been in the top three destinations in terms of visitor numbers.
However, while London used to take the top spot, it was overtaken by Bangkok and now Paris.
And there's more bad news for London as visitor numbers have fallen by 3.47 per cent in 2018 compared to 2017, which equals around 800,000 visitors.
This echos an overall fall in the number of visitors to the UK last year .
A number of major incidents that took place in London in 2017 may have impacted the popularity of the UK capital for tourists in 2018.
Among them was the high profile terror attack on Westminster Bridge.
It was followed by another terrifying attack, this time at London Bridge, months later.
However, Paris may have seen an extra boost to visitor numbers last year thanks to easier visa procedures for Chinese tourists.
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