In 2023, the most visited city in the United States by international tourists was New York, attracting just under nine million visitors. Miami and Los Angeles followed in the ranking, with roughly 4.4 million and 3.6 million international visitors, respectively.

This statistic shows the leading city destinations in the United States in 2019, by number of international arrivals. New York was the leading city destination in the U.S. in terms of international arrivals with approximately 14 million visitors from foreign countries in 2019.

The Mexican city of Cancún was the top Latin American destination for foreign visitors in 2018, with approximately 6.04 million international tourist arrivals. This number was expected to increase by 1.8 percent in 2019, reaching 6.15 million foreign arrivals that year. Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires, ranked second on the list of top city destinations for international tourism in Latin America, with nearly 2.7 million international tourist arrivals in 2018 and an estimate of 2.77 million arrivals for 2019. During the depicted period, the most visited city in the whole American continent was New York.

This statistic shows the most popular United States cities for summer travel in 2016. During the survey, 16 percent of the respondents stated that they planned to visit New York for their summer city trip in 2016, making it the most popular city trip destination.

The city park with the highest annual visitation in 2023 was Central Park in New York, accounting for a total of 42 million visitors. The second most visited city park in that year was Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, with nearly half the visitation of Central Park, at 24 million.

In 2015, Dubai was the city with the highest number of tourists staying at least one night per capita. That same year, international overnight visitor spending in Dubai reached 28.5 billion US dollars. The city, which is the largest and most populous city in the United Arab Emirates, was also one of the most expensive holiday destinations in the world in 2018. In 2016, 14.87 million people visited Dubai from abroad.

Europe and Asia: top destinations

According to the source, most of the 20 tourist cities with the highest number of visitor arrivals per capita were Asian or European cities. After Dubai, Amsterdam and Prague were the second and third cities with the greatest number of tourists spending at least one night per capita. With respectively, 2.7 and 2.5 visitors per capita, the two European cities were followed by another one: London. Singapore, ranked fifth with 2.1 visitors per capita, was the first Asian city in the list. Thus, New-York the first North American city of this ranking was 17th. It appears that Europe remains one of the most popular tourist destinations. Asia was also a very attractive destinations for international visitors with Hong-Kong being the leading city destination in 2017.

Focus on tourism in Europe

Since the nineties, the number of international tourist arrivals in Europe keeps increasing. France is the European country with the largest number of international visitors’ arrivals, while Spain and Italy are also two of the leading tourist destinations on the continent. Travel and tourism have an important contribution to GDP in Europe, reaching 781.6 billion US dollar and 2018 and expected to attain 991.4 billion in 2028.

According to a study by the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), Paris was the city with the highest direct travel and tourism contribution to GDP in 2022. That year, the direct travel and tourism GDP in the capital of France - the country with the highest number of international tourist arrivals worldwide - amounted to roughly 35.65 billion U.S. dollars. Meanwhile, Beijing and Orlando followed on the ranking in 2022, with a direct travel and tourism GDP of around 32.6 billion and 31.1 billion U.S. dollars, respectively.

This statistic shows the most popular domestic summer city destinations for travelers in the United States in 2015, according to travel agent members of the ASTA Research Family. During the survey, 17 percent of the respondents forecasted that Orlando would be a popular domestic city destination for U.S. travelers in summer 2015.

Bangkok had the most international overnight visitors in 2018 with 22.78 million, followed by Paris and London with 19.1 and 19.09 million, respectively.
 

 Is Bangkok the world’s number one tourist destination?

Bangkok has become increasingly popular as a tourist attraction over the past years, and its popularity looks unlikely to wane any time soon. The number of overnight visitors to Thailand’s capital has more than doubled since 2010. The city has many attractions on offer, including temples, local markets, a varied nightlife and shopping. Therefore, it may come as no surprise that Bangkok was also one of the leading cities in international visitor spending worldwide in 2018, with visitors to the city spending over 20 billion U.S. dollars. Although tourists spend a lot of money when traveling to Bangkok, it still ranked among the 30 cheapest holiday destinations in the world by average price per night per person in 2018.

Global tourism industry 

Globally, the tourism industry has experienced continuous year-over-year growth for the past decade. In 2018, the number of international tourist arrivals worldwide was estimated to reach approximately 1.4 billion – the figure having more than doubled over the past 15 years.

In 2024, Cuzco, Peru, was named the top destination in Latin America by travelers, receiving a score of 87.47. The small southern city of Antigua, Guatemala, followed in second place with a score of nearly 86 points.

This statistic shows the most visited tourist attractions worldwide as of April 2014. Each year, 22.5 million people visit Niagara Falls.

Most visited tourist attractions - additional information

Attracting just short of 40 million visitors per year, the Las Vegas Strip was the most visited tourist attraction in the world as of April 2014, closely followed by Times Square in New York City with 39.2 million. The top nine tourist attractions, and 28 out of the top 50, were located in the United States. With so much to see and do in their own country, it is not surprising that many U.S. travelers choose to take domestic trips over international ones – in 2014, 84 percent of people taking trips were traveling domestically, compared to just 16 percent traveling abroad.

The Las Vegas Strip, situated in Las Vegas in the state of Nevada, is well-known for its gambling and casino scene, nightlife, restaurants and shopping. The city is packed with resorts offering a variety of entertainment for visitors. Nevada’s most famous industry, casino gaming, was expected to generate around 13 billion U.S. dollars in 2015. Las Vegas is also a leader in the U.S. meetings and conventions industry, hosting more than 22 thousand conventions in 2013.

Outside of the U.S., the most visited tourist attraction was the Forbidden City in Beijing, receiving more than 15 million visitors annually. Built in the early fifteenth century, the Forbidden City was home to Emperors and the center of Chinese government from the Ming dynasty until the end of the Qing dynasty in 1912. The most visited tourist attraction in Europe was the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, Turkey. The ancient market received 15 million visitors in 2014, although only ranked 11th worldwide.

In 2018, Cancún (Mexico) was the Latin American city with the largest number of international visitors, receiving a total of 6.04 million tourists. It was followed by Punta Cana (Dominican Republic) with 3.89 million international tourists that year.

The number of international tourist arrivals to the selected European destinations increased significantly in 2023 over the previous year, experiencing strong signs of recovery from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and in some cases even surpassing pre-pandemic levels. Overall, Paris and the Île-de-France region recorded the highest figure among the selected destinations in 2023, with around 21.6 million inbound tourist arrivals. London and Istanbul followed in the ranking that year, with roughly 20.3 million and 17.4 million arrivals, respectively. What are the most visited countries by international tourists? Both before and after the health crisis, France was the country with the highest number of inbound tourist arrivals worldwide. In 2023, inbound arrivals to France reached 100 million, the highest figure reported by the country to date. Meanwhile, the United States, which ranked third by inbound arrivals that year, was the country with the highest international tourism receipts worldwide. Has inbound tourism recovered from the impact of COVID-19? While the number of international tourist arrivals worldwide grew sharply in 2023 compared to the previous year, it remained approximately 11 percent lower than in 2019. Overall, the total contribution of travel and tourism to the global GDP was four percent below pre-pandemic levels in 2023.

A 2024 global study analyzed the travel destinations that reported the highest increase in share of flight bookings from the United States between June and August 2024 compared to 2019. Overall, Cancun in Mexico was the city with the highest change in U.S. tourist demand in the summer of 2024, with a 1.7 percent increase compared to 2019.

Mexico was the most visited destination by international tourists in Latin America in 2023, surpassing 42 million tourist arrivals in that year. In the second place, but far behind, was the Dominican Republic.

A global tourism powerhouse By developing airport infrastructure and calibrating new direct flights, Mexico has set international tourism high on its priorities list. At the forefront of Mexico's spike in international tourism is the FONATUR, or Mexico's National Fund for Tourism Development. The tourism body worked in the expansion of Cancun's airport and other four key tourist airports in the country. Plus, Mexico City's airport added new international direct flights in the 2010s, resulting in being rated as the best internationally connected airport in Latin America in 2019. With this and other developments in this sector, the North American country managed to rank among the top 20 destinations in the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Ranking that year.

South America's tourism leader Through its geographically diverse landscape and globally recognized wine industry, Argentina has grown its international tourism sector. The influx of foreign visitors to Argentina can in some way be attributed to the country's air-travel infrastructure. The national air carrier, Aerolineas Argentinas, was one of the top airline operating in Latin America in 2019. That same year, passenger traffic to Argentinian airports grew by four percent. Though in April 2020, in the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the arrival of international air travel tourists to Argentina came to a complete halt, ensuing a similar fate of the global tourism industry.

In 2023, London was the leading European city tourism destination based on the number of bed nights. That year, bed nights in the United Kingdom's capital exceeded 78 million, denoting a sharp annual increase but not fully recovering yet from the impact of COVID-19. Meanwhile, Paris and Istanbul followed in the ranking in 2023, with roughly 52 million and nearly 30 million bed nights. What are the most visited countries in Europe? While the French capital came in second among leading European cities based on bed nights, France topped the ranking of the European countries with the highest number of inbound tourist arrivals in 2023, ahead of Spain, Italy, and Turkey. Meanwhile, when looking at European countries with the highest tourism receipts that year, Spain recorded the highest figure, with over 90 billion U.S. dollars, followed by the United Kingdom. How many international tourists visit Europe every year? In 2023, the number of international tourist arrivals in Europe grew significantly over the previous year, totaling over 700 million. This figure, however, remained below pre-pandemic levels. Overall, either before and after the impact of COVID-19, Europe was the region with the highest number of international tourist arrivals worldwide.

This statistic shows the number of international overnight visitors in the most popular North American city destinations in 2016. New York had the largest number of international overnight visitors in 2016 with 12.7 million.

This statistic shows the most welcoming out of popular tourist cities in the United States as of July 2014. During the survey, 97 percent of locals from Las Vegas said that they thought the locals in their city were welcoming to tourists.

This statistic shows the daily cost of hotels in the most popular domestic city destination in the United States in summer 2015. In New York City, the average daily rate of hotels was 310 U.S. dollars per night during the summer travel season in 2015. The average daily rate for the entire U.S. hotel industry reached 113.42 U.S. dollars in 2014.

When it comes to global tourism, some cities are more expensive than others. They may also attract tourists that are willing to spend a bit more. Dubai had by far the largest international visitor spending in the world in 2018 at 30.82 billion U.S. dollars.