Calrissian
Active Member
It's interesting how this British site puts Toronto as the second most visited city in North America. (by international tourists) Toronto is 14th over-all, so that's not too bad.
ARTICLE
Top 150 City Destinations: London Leads the Way
Oct 2007
by Caroline Bremner.
Euromonitor International is pleased to release the results of its first Top 150 City Destinations Ranking, providing insight into the the world's leading and most dynamic cities in terms of tourist arrivals.
London ranked top in Euromonitor International's Top 150 City Destinations. The British capital received an impressive 15.6 million international visitors in 2006, far above other world capitals such as Bangkok, Paris, Singapore or New York.
The 150 leading world destinations accounted for 27% of the global inbound tourism in terms of arrivals. Cities are the key driver of growth in the tourism industry, benefiting from the development of the air industry and the investment in infrastructure and iconic buildings. From Bilbao's Guggenheim Museum to Kuala Lumpur's Petronas Twin Towers, the new skylines of cities attract millions of tourists to their airports and hotels, boosting the tourism industry to unprecedented levels.
With China emerging as a key travel and tourism market, the prospect of city tourism cannot help but look East. Will London resist the push?
London storms ahead of the pack
London attracted 15.6 million international visitors in 2006 to rank first in Euromonitor International's Top 150 City Destinations. The gap between the UK capital and other major cities increased as the presence of tourists in London's streets increased by 13% up on 2005.
Bangkok (2), Paris (3) and Singapore (4) follow London respectively, with around ten million tourists each. Hong Kong ranked 5th with 8 million, while the six-million-club included New York (6), Dubai (7) and Rome (8).
In 2006, 27 cities received more than 3 million international arrivals and 67 cities over a million. Overall, these 150 cities received 237 million tourists, accounting for 27% of the world's inbound tourism flows. The top150 cities received 6% more tourists than in 2005.
Top 150 City Destinations 2006
City Ranking '000 tourist arrivals
London 1 15,640
Bangkok 2 10,350
Paris 3 9,700
Singapore 4 9,502
Hong Kong 5 8,139
New York City 6 6,219
Dubai 7 6,120
Rome 8 6,033
Seoul 9 4,920
Barcelona 10 4,695
Dublin 11 4,469
Bahrain 12 4,418
Shanghai 13 4,315
Toronto 14 4,160
Kuala Lumpur 15 4,125
Istanbul 16 3,994
Madrid 17 3,921
Amsterdam 18 3,901
Mecca 19 3,800
Prague 20 3,702
More from Forbes Mag. (2009 figures)
Forbes released their Top 10 Most-Visited-U.S.-Cities list. Leading the list is Orlando, Florida. Taking the Number 10 position is San Diego, California. There are some surprises in between these rankings.
Here’s the Forbes list:
Orlando, Fla.: 48 million visitors
New York City: 47 million visitors
Chicago, Ill.: 45,580,000 visitors
Anaheim/Orange County, Calif.: 42,700,000 visitors
Miami, Fla: 38,100,000 visitors
Las Vegas, Nev.: 36,351,469 visitors
Atlanta, Ga.: 35,400,000 visitors
Houston, Texas: 31,060,000 visitors
Philadelphia, Pa.: 30,320,000 visitors
San Diego, California: 29,600,000 visitors
That's old, the 2008 results from Euromonitor had Toronto right after New York (NY's number was around 7M and Toronto upto 6M) but I think they termed it as over-night visitiors. I can't find it online, but it's published in Time Out's book of World's Cities (at the back where they have all the various city stats) - leafed through it just on Friday.
EDIT: I found this, but its still not the same listing/report.. not sure what their diff criteria is, http://www.euromonitor.com/euromonitor-internationals-top-city-destination-ranking/article
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