Move over Bangkok (and Paris), London has been declared the traveller's most popular city in the world.
Mastercard released the data in its annual travel study, the Global Destination Cities Index, where it ranks 132 destination cities around the world in terms of total international overnight visitor arrivals and cross-border spending.
Bangkok reportedly lost its first place ranking in 2013, largely due to political unrest but the report suggests that the Thai capital is showing signs of recovery and closing the gap with London.
According to Eric Schneider, group head of MasterCard Advisors, Asia-Pacific, "this is an impressive achievement and it is similar qualities that have kept them both at the top"
He sais this referring to London and Bangkok remaining in the top spot in the MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index for the last five years.
Said Schneider,
"Despite their size, they are both relatively easy to navigate for a tourist, and even in Bangkok, English is often all you need to get around. Food and culture are also available in abundance, finally, it's the unique and seemingly limitless heritage, from temples to palaces in Bangkok or churches and castles in London, that keep enticing tourists to make the trip."
However, despite the fact that majority of the cities on the top 10 list are Asian, the top five visitor groups coming to Bangkok, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for example, are all from the Asia-Pacific region causing a lack of diversity.
Istanbul, on the other hand has the most diverse visitors, with half of its inbound tourists coming from 33 different countries.
Check out the top 10 cities based on the expected number of foreign visitors making overnight-stay trips this year:
1. London - 18.82 million visitors
2. Bangkok - 18.24 million
3. Paris - 16.06 million
4. Dubai - 14.26 million
5. Istanbul - 12.56 million
6. New York - 12.27 million
7. Singapore - 11.88 million
8. Kuala Lumpur - 11.12 million
9. Seoul - 10.35 million
10. Hong Kong - 8.66 million