Latest rankings of world tourism cities to be released in the Report on World Tourism City Development (2019)

From September 2nd through the 4th, the WTCF Helsinki Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit 2019 will be held in the city of Helsinki. The theme of the Summit is “Smart Tourism — Road to City Innovation and Development”. Core contents of the Report on World Tourism City Development (2019) will be released during the summit. Additionally, compound ranking of the development of world tourism cities and the top 20 cities in six sub-indexes will be announced.

The Report on World Tourism City Development is an important academic research achievement of the WTCF. As an annual research report, its evaluation, research, and rankings of world tourism cities mainly aim to promote cooperation and exchange among tourism cities and comprehensively improve the importance of their role in the development of this sector. The report achieves this in part through summing up data from successful experiences of popular global destinations.

In the rankings released last year, the top 10 cities of the compound ranking were London, Paris, New York, Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul, Sydney, Dubai, Hong Kong and Rome.

The total number of sample cities of the report is 100, covering 70 countries and regions around the world. The evaluation indicator in the report adopts a framework of a compound index plus six sub-indexes. The compound index refers to the 2019 World Tourism City Development Compound Ranking, including city popularity, industrial prosperity, the ‘smart level’ of the city, tourism convenience, economic contribution, and tourism satisfaction. The overall index highlights the comprehensive functions of these cities, focusing on its development. As for the six sub-indexes, they include tourism’s core contents such as available resources, the industry and its contribution, as well as urban developmental contents such as the economy, infrastructure and management, which accommodate various elements of tourism and cities. Moreover, it emphasizes the philosophy of coordinated and integrated development between tourism and cities.

The main resources of the report is based on Euromonitor's data released in 2018, and it also incorporates the publicly released data and rankings from tourism organizations and media, such as European Cities Marketing, Economist Intelligence Unit, TripAdviser, MasterCard, NenBio, Sen Foundation, A.T. Kearney and the Guardian, as well as international organizations such as UNWTO, UNESCO, WHO, the ICCA, the ICAO, and GHA, which all reflect the comprehensiveness, representativeness and authority of the rankings.

As the sponsor of the WTCF Helsinki Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit 2019, the WTCF was voluntarily formed by famous tourism cities and tourism-related institutions in the world under the initiative of Beijing, and it is the world’s first international tourism organization focusing on cities. Since its establishment in 2012, the WTCF has successfully held seven Fragrant Hills Tourism Summits. Members have grown from 58 at the very beginning to the current 218, covering 73 countries and territories.