Hong Kong holds on to top tourist arrival numbers in face of unrest

Hong Kong: Victoria Harbor its skyscrapers are still the world's most visited. Photo / Paul Yeung, via Bloomberg

In spite of wary tourists and months of unrest, Hong Kong has retained the top spot in the list of Top 100 City Destinations as the most visited in the world.

The report by Euromonitor International has weighed up the world's top cities by international tourist arrivals to rank the 100 most visited cities on earth. 5 of the top 10 spots on the list are in Asia Pacific, including the turbulent super city on the South China Sea.

After a sharp fall in visitor confidence and months of pro-democracy protests, it still accounts for 65 million a year – making it the world's favourite city break.

"Amid the current situation in Hong Kong, leading to a sharp decline in the number of visitor arrivals this year at minus 8.7 per cent, the city is expected to maintain its leading position in 2019," said Rabia Yasmeen an analyst with the market research company.

However the city of skyscrapers can't afford to get complacent. Other destinations are catching up quickly, including centres of transport networks around the Middle East.
The UAE's air-transport hub Dubai expects to declare 1.47 billion passenger movements in 2019 –growth of 4.7 per cent.

Although Asia has the busiest airspace, Europe remains a key area of interest for tourists. London might be facing an equally uncertain future with the continuing Brexit stalemate – however this has done nothing to put off holidaymakers.

Istanbul is the fastest growing destination for air travel with the inbound tourists putting it back in the top 10.

North America appears to be a destination in decline as its cities fall out of favour with tourist arrivals.

New York City, although the most popular American destination has fallen out of the top 10 to 11, while Miami (29), Los Angeles (33) and Las Vegas (38) have also experienced a slide in rankings.

In spite of growing tourist numbers, the cities are struggling to compete with Asia and Europe for newly mobile tourist markets.

"As tourism becomes a cornerstone for economic growth and receives more committed attention from governments, cities are expected to be the centre of innovation and investment with technology and sustainability as key focus areas in the years to come," says Yasmeen.