With $20.2b ‘annual visitor spending’, London edges out Bangkok to retain tourists’ destination title

London has edged out Bangkok to retain its title as the world’s most popular tourist city, with 18.8 million visitors forecast to stay, at least, one night in 2015.
The British capital leads the MasterCard Global Destinations Cities Index for the fifth time in seven years.
Bangkok topped the index, which ranked 132 cities, for the two years that London missed out.
Three of the four fastest-growing destinations were in Asia: Colombo in Sri Lanka, Chengdu in China, and Osaka in Japan.
Also Paris, with an expected 16 million visitors and Dubai with 14.3 million, ranked third and fourth in the list.
London also topped the list for annual visitor spending with $20.2 billion, followed by $17.4 billion in New York and $16.6 billion in Paris.
“Tourists in Bangkok are forecast to spend $12.4 billion this year,’’ MasterCard said.