Dubai was the city on which visitors spent the most money in 2016 - $28.5 billion - and the amount is projected to increase by 10% in 2017, according to a study of 132 cities by Mastercard. In second place by a considerable margin behind Dubai was New York, with $17 billion spent in 2016. Visitors spent $16.1 billion in London and $12 billion in Paris in 2016. Tourist spending includes, among other things, the overnight stay, shopping, food and beverages, and public transportation, but not airplane tickets.
For the second straight year, Bangkok was rated as the global leader in number of visitors. 19.4 million people visited the Thai capital, spending $14.2 billion there.
In Tel Aviv, rated in 62nd place, tourists spent $1.47 billion in 2016, the same amount as in 2015. Tel Aviv was in 10th place in number of visitors on the index of Middle East destinations, and in 86th place in the world, with 992,000 visitors, compared with 950,000 in 2015. Tel Aviv has yet to reach the one million visitors it had in 2013, but the number of visitors was 20% higher than in 2009.
Tourist spending in Tel Aviv was lower than the $1.6 billion spent in 2014, but 40% more than in 2009.
The global upward trend in tourism is also having an effect on this index. The number of international visitors grew 55% between 2009 and the end of 2016, and will continue growing according to the forecast. Projected increases in the number of visitors in 2017 are 12% for Tokyo, 4% for Bangkok, 4.5% for Paris, and 5% for London. The study predicts a 6% rise in visitors to Tel Aviv. Unusually for the world's leading cities, the number of visitors to New York is projected to fall by 2.4% in 2017.
The money wasted by tourists in the cities they visit is an enormous economic resource. According to the study, real GDP has grown 22% since 2009, while spending by international visitors staying in cities grew by 41% during the same period. "Since 2009, more than half of the top destination cities reported an increase in spending by overnight visitors consistent with or greater than GDP growth. These cities benefit greatly from tourism and are primed to be engines of broad economic growth for countries," the Mastercard study concluded.
Published by Globes [online], Israel Business News - www.globes-online.com - on October 2, 2017
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2017