Skift Take
Another year reveals that arrivals and visitor growth in Asia continues to be the real story of international travel.
Over the past six years, it has been a tale of two cities in terms of welcoming the most overnight visitors, with London and Bangkok jockeying for first place.
But this year London again ended up in first place on MasterCard's Global Destination Cities Index, edging out Thailand's capital with 18.8 million to 18.2 million projected visitors. Paris, Dubai, and Istanbul also join the top five and are between two million and six million visitors behind. For the most part, the list presents an equal representation of Asian and European cities in the Top 20.
However, Western European cities are a minority against markets in A