Taipei ranks 16th among the 132 cities listed in this year’s MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index, and the capital city is projected to attract 6.55 million international tourists this year, an increase of 2.5 percent from 6.38 million last year.
Since 2009, MasterCard has ranked cities in terms of the number of their international overnight visitor arrivals and cross-border spending by these same visitors in the destination cities, and gives visitor and passenger growth forecasts, based on data analysis of the UN and the IMF.
According to the MasterCard study, in the Asia-Pacific region, in terms of the number of international overnight visitor arrivals last year, Taipei ranked 11th in the world and sixth in the Asia-Pacific region. Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul and Hong Kong welcomed more international tourists than Taipei did.
In terms of international tourist spending last year, Taipei ranked 11th in the world and fifth in the Asia-Pacific region. Last year, international tourists in Taipei spent US$9.28 billion, down 2.3 percent compared with US$9.5 billion in 2013. International visitors to Asia spent more in Seoul, Singapore, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur.
Taiwan as a whole has been a fast-growing tourist destination over the past five years.
The top 10 cities in this year’s MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index are London, Bangkok, Paris, Dubai, Istanbul, New York, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul and Hong Kong.
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