2018 Mastercard Ranking: BANGKOK, THE City the Most Visited of the World

20 October 20181523 views0

20 million international visitors and a 1st place on the 2018 podium of the most visited cities in the world for … Bangkok.

What is the Mastercard Rating?

The Mastercard ranking is based on an index that Mastercard created itself, taking into consideration factors such as: the number of international visitors; the duration of their stay and their average expenses within the concerned cities.

This data gives us an idea of the travelers’ favorite cities and even permits us to make predictions for the upcoming years, based on the weighted average of the tourism forecasts at a national level and the current monthly data of the destinations in question.

This year 2018, the Mastercard index expanded itself to eventually compare 162 cities across the world. And once again, the 1st place is attributed to … Bangkok.

BANGKOK – THE Unchallengeable Capital

20 millions. This is the number of international visitors that Bangkok has hosted. It is 2.5 millions more than Paris, and 7 millions more than New York. Therefore, the Thai capital remains at the top of the Mastercard ranking of the most visited cities in the world for this new 2018 year.

Below, we can see that tourists generally stay 4,7 nights within the capital and spend an average of 173$ per day. As a comparison, the average daily expenses for those staying in Dubai are close to 540$, which is much higher than in Bangkok. Why? This difference is probably related to the tourists’ purchasing power in Thailand which is much better than many other countries thanks to the low living costs of the capital of the Kingdom of Siam.

Furthermore, Thailand is the only country having 2 cities appearing on the Cities’ Top 10 in terms of money spent – Bangkok and Phuket.

TRIO BANGKOK – LONDON – PARIS

The trio Bangkok – London – Paris is special here and gives us a hint about the international travelers’ motivations. Indeed, all of these cities do have a common point: they allie a powerful economic development with a rich local culture.

… 2019 ?

For the upcoming years, Bangkok does not have much to worry about in terms of economy. Seeing the forecasts, its growth is estimated at more than 4,5% according the last data given by the Bank of Thailand. The Kingdom of Siam’s capital will remain attractive to both investors and expatriates as well as tourists.

We can already see a significant increase from 2017 to 2018. Indeed, the growth within the economy worldwide shows a correlation with the number of international visitors increase within the top 10 first cities – apart from Seoul, which is the only one which has actually known a decline.