Hong Kong Ranks In Asia Pacific’s Top 10 Most Visited Cities: Mastercard Global Destinations Cities Index

HONG KONG – September 26, 2017 – Hong Kong is ranked one of Asia Pacific’s top 10 most visited destinations for seven consecutive years, according to the Mastercard Global Destinations Cities Index 2017 released today.

Ranked 11th globally and sixth in Asia Pacific, Hong Kong welcomed 8.86 million international overnight visitors in 2016. Despite having the same ranking as the previous year, the city saw a 6.1 percent increase in international overnight visitors from 2015, which saw 8.35 million visitors. Overnight arrival to Hong Kong is forecast to grow by 4.5 percent in 2017.

The city is also expected to see 10.1 percent growth in international overnight visitor spending from US$6.06 billion in 2016, placing it eighth in the region and 17th globally.

In 2016, South Korea was the biggest feeder market for Hong Kong, with more than 1 million visitors, followed by Taiwan (872,999), the United States (868,968), Japan (692,529) and the Philippines (675,914).

Ranking the world’s 132 top destination cities, the Index analyzes 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.

Asia Pacific & Global Highlights:

Bangkok continues to be the No. 1 destination city with 19.41 million international overnight visitor arrivals, while London came in a close second with 19.06 million visitors. Singapore (13.11 million visitors) inched past New York (12.7 million visitors) into fifth position for the first time in three years, while Seoul (12.39 million visitors) leapfrogged three spots into seventh place.

Osaka leads as the fastest-growing city at 24.0 percent while Jakarta and Hanoi’s entrance into the list of top 10 fastest-growing cities point to Southeast Asia’s rising significance as a key travel hub.

In the Index’s seven-year history, China has grown from being a passive contributor to the region’s travel sector to the main driver of growth for visitor arrivals into Asia Pacific’s top destinations.

The Index also tracks the highest amount of international overnight visitor spending among each region’s top 10 cities. Bringing in US$91.16 billion in travel expenditure in 2016, Asia Pacific outpaced Europe (US$74.74 billion), and North America (US$55.02 billion).

(Source: Mastercard Newsroom)

About the Mastercard Global Destination Cities Index

The Mastercard Index of Global Destination Cities ranks cities in terms of the number of their total international overnight visitor arrivals and the cross-border spending by these same visitors in the destination cities in 2016, and gives visitor and passenger growth forecasts for 2017.

Public data is used in deriving the international overnight visitor arrivals and their cross-border spending in each of the 132 destination cities. This Index and the accompanying reports are not based on Mastercard volumes or transactional data.