Press Release & Industry News
Bangkok still No.1 destination
Bangkok was ranked the No.1 destination city worldwide for a second consecutive year, followed closely by London, according to the seventh annual Mastercard Global Destination Cities Index (GDCI 2017).
Bangkok received 19.4 million international overnight visitors in 2016, which is forecast to grow 4% to 20.2 million in 2017, according to GDCI 2017.
Bangkok was also ranked fifth in terms of international overnight visitor spending, which totalled UScopy4.1 billion (469 billion baht).
Ranking the world's 132 top destination cities, the index analyses visitor volume and spending for the 2016 calendar year and provides a forecast for annual growth, insights on the fastest-growing destination cities, and a deeper understanding of why people travel and how they spend around the world.
Leisure was the main purpose for visitors travelling to Bangkok (88.6%), significantly higher than for business (11.4%), while the top three categories for expenditure were shopping (22.9%), accommodation (22.6%) and local services (21.5%).
The latest GDCI also provides new data on a destination's top five feeder countries, as opposed to previous indices which provided feeder cities instead. For Bangkok, the top five feeder countries areChina (34.3%), Japan (7.1%), South Korea (4.3%), India (4.1%) and the UK (3.8%). Asia-Pacific has the most cities in the top 10 and it beat other regions in term of spending. Visitors to Asian cities in the top 10 spent $91.2 billion in 2016, outpacing Europe ($74.7 billion) and North America ($55 billion). For More information visit www.bangkokpost.com/business/news/1332567/bangkok-still-no-1-destination.
