London has retained its title as the world’s most popular tourist destination in the Global Destinations Cities Index, which provides an in-depth ranking of the 132 most travelled cities from around the world.
An estimated 18.82m tourists will visit London in 2015 according to the report, compiled by Mastercard, who will spend more than £13bn in the capital this year.
Bangkok was second on the list followed by Paris, Dubai, Istanbul and New York – where annual visitor numbers have fallen to 12.27m.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics showed the number of visitors coming to the UK rose 5% year on year for the 12 months to January 2015 generating earnings from overseas visits of £21.6bn.
In the 12 months to January 2015 the number of visits to the UK was 5% higher than a year earlier and earnings rose by 2%.
