The World's Most Visited Cities In 2016

New York, London and Paris are well known as some of the world's premier tourist destinations. All three of them trail Bangkok in the popularity stakes, however. The Thai capital had 21.5 million overnight visitors in 2016, the most of any city worldwide according to a recent report from Mastercard. By comparison, London had 19.9 million visitors who stayed at least one night while Paris had 18 million.

Several other Middle Eastern and Asian cities make the list of the globe's top-10 most visited. Dubai is in fifth place with 15.3 million visitors in 2016 while Singapore is just behind New York with 12.1 million. Tourists certainly like to splash the cash and Dubai had the highest level of visitor spending last year. In 2016, visitors to Dubai spent an impressive $31.3 billion, a considerable distance ahead of second-placed London's $14.8 billion.