Travel & Experiences

Bangkok, Thailand, tops destination survey

The new No. 1 destination city is the first Asian city take the top spot. Bangkok's air connectivity had growth rates of better than 18% in 2011 and 2012, and 9.8% in 2013, pushing iit to No. 1 in international visitors.

The new No. 1 destination city is the first Asian city take the top spot. Bangkok’s air connectivity had growth rates of better than 18% in 2011 and 2012, and 9.8% in 2013, pushing iit to No. 1 in international visitors.  (Timothy Seren / EPA)

Share

Bangkok is the most popular destination city in the world, ousting London from the top spot for the first time, according to the 2013 Global Destination Cities Index released Monday by MasterCard. The MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index ranks cities in terms of the number of their total international visitor arrivals and the cross-border spending by those visitors in the destination cities. This is the third year MasterCard has conducted the study, and all but one of the top 20 destination cities saw a growth in the estimated number of international visitors. Check out the four other top destinations.

No. 2 London

After topping the index in both visitor numbers and visitor spending the last two years, London was dethroned this year. But only about 25,000 visitors separated London from new No. 1 Bangkok.   (AFP/Getty Images)

Travel & Experiences

More From the Los Angeles Times