Mastercard's Global Destination Cities Index 2018 is a list of the most visited cities in the world compiled by Mastercard credit card. This year's winner is Bangkok (again), which attracted just over 20 million foreign visitors, followed by London with just under 20 million and Paris with almost 17.5 million. Fourth was Dubai with over 15.5 million and fifth was Singapore with nearly 14 million.

This year, and for the first time, Bali was placed at 20th with 8.3 million foreign visitors.

Winners of Mastercard's Global Destination Cities Index 2018 by numbers of foreign visitors:

1. Bangkok, Thailand 20.05 million
2. London, England 19.83 million
3. Paris, France 17, 44 million
4. Dubai, United Arab Emirates 15.79 million
5. Singapore 13.91 million
6. New York, United States 13.13 million
7. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 12.58 million
8. Tokyo, Japan 11.93 million
9. Istanbul, Turkey 10.7 million
10. Seoul, South Korea 9.54 million
11. Antalya, Turkey 9.42 million
12. Phuket, Thailand 9.29 million
13. Mecca, Saudi Arabia 9.18 million
14. Hongkong 9.03 million
15. Milan, Italy 8.81 million
16. Palma de Mallorca, Spain 8.78 million
17. Barcelona, ​​Spain 8.69 million
18. Pattaya, Thailand 8.67 million
19. Osaka, Japan 8.42 million
20. Bali, Indonesia 8.3 million

The list is based on the world's most visited cities according to their solid infrastructure, attractions for recreation and business, as well as a strong reflection of local culture, as reported by The Jakarta Post and Kompas.

Mastercard report they looked at 162 cities for this years index and ranked them in terms of the number of total international overnight visitor arrivals and the cross-border spending by these same visitors in the destination cities in 2017. This then gave them international overnight visitor growth forecasts for 2018.

Public data was used in deriving the international overnight visitor arrivals and their cross-border spending in each of the 162 destination cities.

Forecasts are based upon the weighted average of the national level tourism forecasts and the actual 2018 monthly data at the destination level, which is available to the latest month before release.

Mastercard say this Index and the accompanying reports are not based on Mastercard volumes or transactional data.

Sources: The Jakarta Post, Kompas, Mastercard

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