Hong Kong was visited by 27.7 million visitors in 2014
As Russkaya Germaniya writes, no other global metropolis attracts more tourists than Hong Kong. The island in the southern part of the special administrative region of the People's Republic of China was visited by 27.7 million visitors in 2014. Most of them are residents of mainland China, which does not prevent the Asian metropolis from topping the list of the world's most visited tourist cities for the sixth consecutive year.
In the latest Euromonitor International ranking, second after Hong Kong is London – the British capital was visited by 17.4 million people, third is Bangkok, fourth is Singapore. Further down the list, Asian metropolises shift again to make room for a European one: Paris became the fifth most attractive tourist destination in the world (14.99 million tourists in 2014).
Places in the top ten were also found for Macau – another special administrative region of the PRC (sixth place, 14.97 million guests), China's Shenzhen (7th, 13.1 million), America's New York (8th, 12.2 million), Turkey's Istanbul (9th, 11.9 million) and Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur (10th place, 11.6 million tourists).
Italian cities also perform well as tourist magnets: Rome, according to British tourism market researchers, became 14th in the ranking (8.7 million guests per year), Milan – 24th (6 million tourists), Florence took fortieth place (4.2 million visitors).
Germany is also represented in the Euromonitor International list by three cities. At 35th place in the ranking is Berlin: in 2014, the German capital received 4.7 million guests, an increase of 7.5 percent compared to the previous year. The second German city – Munich – occupies 61st place with three million visitors, the third – Frankfurt am Main – 92nd (two million visitors).
The largest influx of tourists – 46.6 percent – was experienced by the Brazilian metropolis Rio de Janeiro (80th place, 1.7 million guests): the country hosted the FIFA World Cup in 2014, which undoubtedly accounts for this trend. The upcoming 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio are expected to influence it again.
Moscow (31st place, 5.6 million guests) and St. Petersburg (69th place, 2.7 million) lost ground compared to the previous year, Kyiv lost its place in the top hundred, and its newcomers are the Greek cities Athens, Heraklion and Rhodes.
British researchers cite the growing interest in travel among Chinese residents as the main reason for the popularity of megacities in the Asia-Pacific region. More and more new air routes are opening between them, and visa requirements are lenient. The Chinese are gradually discovering individual tourism, increasingly opting out of group tours and booking trips independently. Overall, this brings success to many Asian cities both as established and new tourist destinations; the flow of tourists from Europe constitutes a much less significant group of visitors in Asia than local residents.
China itself is becoming increasingly popular with tourists: the list of the hundred most visited cities in the world includes seven Chinese megacities – Shenzhen (7th place), Guangzhou (16th), Shanghai (20th), Beijing (39th), Hangzhou (54th), Zhuhai (64th) and Guilin (91st place). Also represented are seven American cities – New York, Miami, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Orlando, San Francisco and Honolulu.
Euromonitor International is one of the world's leading companies specializing in the collection and evaluation of business information. The British institute's analysis is based on data obtained from 57 countries worldwide. National statistical organizations, trade offices and tourism boards shared with researchers statistical data on the number of international flight passengers and hotel bookings. It should be noted that the Euromonitor International ranking arranges cities by number of visitors, without distinguishing between actual tourists and those on business trips.