Bangkok world’s most visited city for the 4th consecutive year

BANGKOK: The annual ranking published by MasterCard Inc named Bangkok as the world’s most visited city for the fourth consecutive year. The Thai capital edged out Paris and London as the world’s most popular city to visit, marking a visitor count of 22.8 million per year. Paris and London followed Bangkok, marking number of tourists visiting per year at 19.1 million and 15.9 million respectively. New York, Istanbul, Tokyo and Antalya, Turkey, rounded out the top 7.

Internationally, the tourism industry has flourished in the past decade, marking a growth rate of 76 per cent in the last 10 years. Despite Bangkok’s longtime reign atop the list, the Thai tourism industry has faced headwinds, with arrivals dropping 1.03 per cent year-on-year in May 2019 before recovering to grow 0.89 per cent in June from a year earlier. The slight drop in Thailand’s flourishing tourism industry could be attributed to drop off in Chinese arrivals in Thailand in the first half of this year due to an economic slowdown in China. The downturn in the number of visitors from China was partially offset by Indian arrivals. Thailand expects to welcome 2 million Indian tourists in 2019, Yuthasak Supasorn, governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, told Reuters, adding this was one year earlier than its target.

Increasing wealth in populations and the easily accessible low-cost airlines will make travel more comfortable, Dilip Rajakrier, Minor Hotels Chief Executive, said in an email. “Given only less than 10 per cent of the China’s total population having passports today. The potential of the Chinese market will never fade,” he said.