Paris leaves behind London for visitor number for first time in a decade, attracted 19.1 million

Saturday, September 7, 2019

According to a new study Paris surpassed London for receiving the highest number of tourists of any European city in 2018 by attracting 19.1 million foreign visitors.

It left behind the UK capital which had 19.09 million tourist, off the top spot in Europe.

While Bangkok,  Thailand stays ahead of both the countries with 22.78 million visitors.

There was a year-on-year drop in the visitor numbers of 3.7 per cent in  London from 19.83 million in 2017. However, Paris showed an increase by 9.7 per cent from 17.41 million in 2017.

Visitor spending was still higher in London despite Paris’s tourism growth , in 2017 the overnight international visitor spend for the latter was $16.47bn as compared to $14.06bn (£11.53bn) in the former.

By 3.47 percent London’s visitor numbers are expected to have increases in 2019 but the spend is forecast to swell by 4.64 per cent.

Last year, Dubai has the highest visitor spend amounting $30.82bn (£25.28bn), followed by Makkah in Saudi Arabia; Bangkok; and Singapore. London took the fifth spot.
A majority of London’s overnight arrivals were from the US, France and Germany and visitor spending an average of 5.8 nights in the capital and $148 per day.

Allen Simpson, director of strategy and corporate affairs at London and Partners mentioned that London and Paris are both extremely popular tourist destinations, and both cities are experiencing growth in visits from big overseas markets. The long term trend is definitely up – in the past six months London welcomed five per cent more tourists to London than the year before, with visits from China up 20 per cent and from the US up 9 per cent.

Both the countries worked together on a campaign to attract American millennial to visit both the cities as a part of one trip. Trip from London to Paris is easy and is an increasingly popular two-centre holiday.

London is known for its diversity-global, open and tolerant. It invites people from all over the world to continue and enjoy the city and make it their own.

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