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Here are two sets of rankings, both of them have very real methodologies and sources and both of them count the proper sort of visitors to cities as tourists (meaning no pass throughs are counted). The reason I am posting both is because the more comprehensive of the two (though both are comprehensive) does not look at smaller population centers that are tourism draws such as Orlando, Las Vegas, Cancun, and Honolulu, while the other one that ranks the Top 100 cities for tourism in the world does look at them. This is for international visitors and in both analysis' case it only counts people that stay at least 1 night in that city. Oh and also, these numbers will be higher than the numbers most have become accustomed to seeing through the ITA's annual rank because these numbers for both lists include Canada and Mexico whereas the government sponsored ITA lists do not. Canada and Mexico individually comprise of the first and second largest markets of tourists into the United States as it is (by a long-shot) so its only relevant to use statistics that include our largest tourist bases too.
Global Destinations Index, Summer 2014- Summer 2015:
01. New York: 12.27 million international tourists
02. Los Angeles: 5.20 million international tourists
03. Miami: 4.52 million international tourists
04. Toronto: 4.18 million international tourists
05. Vancouver: 3.76 million international tourists
06. San Francisco: 3.39 million international tourists
07. Mexico City: 2.82 million international tourists (page 21)
08. Chicago: 2.35 million international tourists
09. Montreal: 2.12 million international tourists
10. Washington D.C.: 2.06 million international tourists
11. Boston: 1.64 million international tourists
12. Houston: 1.52 million international tourists (page 35)
Global Destinations Index Visitors Spending, 2015:
01. New York: $17.4 Billion
02. Los Angeles: $7.4 Billion
03. Miami: $6.4 Billion
04. San Francisco: $4.8 Billion
05. Chicago: $3.3 Billion
06. Washington D.C.: $2.9 Billion
07. Vancouver: $2.7 Billion
08. Toronto: $2.4 Billion
09. Boston: $2.3 Billion
10. Mexico City: $2.3 Billion
11. Montreal: $1.2 Billion
North America (14 cities):
Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Montreal,
New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Toronto, Vancouver, Washington
They didn't look into Las Vegas, Honolulu, or Orlando as they only concentrated on the major population centers of the world in each realm.
Quote:
City level international overnight arrivals are those who actually stay in the
destination city for at least for one night. In order words we only count cases
where the disembarkation city is also an overnight destination city. This is
opposed to cases where the disembarkation city is merely a transit point while the
destination city maybe some other city in the same country.
The sources for city level overnight arrivals by foreign visitors are typically the
National Statistics Boards of the relevant countries or their Tourism Boards. The
indicators for 122 out of the 132 cities were directly sourced from or estimated
from official data. The other 10 cities were estimated using the Airflow Model (see
below). The estimation procedures are as follows:
• The 2015 scheduled passenger capacity of 35,557 international city
to city pairs
• The historical load factors of the international city-city pairs
• Historical country to country ratios of resident to non-resident
bi-directional flows
• Historical country to country ratios of resident to non-resident
bi-directional flows
• City hub factor adjustments using the International air connectivity index
• 2015 projected growth rates for each destination city which are applied
to the 2014 overnight visitor arrivals on the left
In previous editions of this report Dubai international overnight visitors were at
the paid accommodation level only; in this edition however, Dubai Tourism and
Commerce Marketing has kindly provided us with estimates of international
overnight visitors who stay with friends and family and as such we have revised
our data to include this.
Euromonitor International's Top International Visitor Markets, 2013:
01. New York: 11.85 million
02. Miami: 6.275 million
03. Las Vegas: 6.046 million
04. Los Angeles: 5.073 million
05. Orlando: 4.379 million
06. Mexico City: 3.441 million
07. San Francisco: 3.252 million
08. Toronto: 2.785 million
09. Cancun: 2.761 million
10. Honolulu: 2.369 million
11. Vancouver: 1.951 million
City arrivals data were sourced directly from national statistics offices, airport arrivals, hotel/accommodation stays or other methods for all 57 core countries and 153 market insight countries under review.
Main secondary sources included: governmental, inter-governmental and other official sources; national and international specialist trade press and trade associations; industry study groups and other semi-official sources; and reports published by major operators, travel retailers, online databases and the financial, business and mainstream press. Trade interviews were conducted with national tourist offices, trade associations and travel operators to fill gaps in secondary research.
Country data was then cross-checked on a regional basis by the regional research teams based in London, Vilnius, Chicago and Singapore. Examples of regional sources reviewed included TourMis and European Cities Marketing for Europe. Further top-down checks were conducted by the in-house global research team. Where irregularities were found between editions, supplementary research was conducted to confirm or amend those findings. Euromonitor International is satisfied that the results of the in-country research, coupled with the top-down global perspective, ensure that the Top City Destinations Ranking is robust with a high level of data validation.
It is important to note that the Top City Destinations Ranking is not an exhaustive list and that its purpose is to highlight leading cities gleaned from the findings of Euromonitor International’s annual research programme, with the emphasis on cities, rather than popular holiday resorts.
About as thorough as it can get (when looking at both of them in full).
1) Cancun is mostly American and Canadian visitors. I wouldn't call it a truly international/global beach vacation and party destination like Miami is.
2) Canadian cities do benefit some from having ~320 million US residents immediately south, and residents of the US do visit the Canadian cities. The flip is not so much as true considering there are only ~35 million Canadians and a wider range of US cities for them to visit. Not sure if or to what extent "international" visitation numbers to some of the Canadian cities are skewed simply by people from the US hopping up for a visit (Montreal is a relatively quick drive from Boston, Vancouver is right near Seattle, and Toronto is a couple hours from Buffalo, for instance...flights obviously cheap and frequent from most major 1-2 million+ US cities to these 3 Canadian cities).
3) Honestly surprised that Vancouver gets that much more visitation than Montreal (or frankly that it gets more visitation than San Francisco, no offense to Vancouver...but I do think it has to be skewed by US visitation, if even just for ski trips to Whistler, which by itself receives over 2.5 million visitors a year split between Summer and Winter, many of those being US residents flying into Vancouver and staying an extra night or three in that city).
How much more is there to do in Vancouver than Montreal?!?
4) Just a tidbit about SF - the largest country-provider of international tourists is the UK, but that is expected to change in the next few years since projections for Chinese visitation are soaring, despite their economy. This statistic may surprise some. Neither Canada nor Mexico are top 2, and an Asian country is currently not #1, but rather a European country is.
3) Honestly surprised that Vancouver gets that much more visitation than Montreal (or frankly that it gets more visitation than San Francisco, no offense to Vancouver...but I do think it has to be skewed by US visitation, if even just for ski trips to Whistler, which by itself receives over 2.5 million visitors a year split between Summer and Winter, many of those being US residents flying into Vancouver and staying an extra night or three in that city).
Vancouver has the largest population of expat Hong Kong people outside of Hong Kong, it actually has more Hong Kong people than all of Mainland China itself. They are by far and away the most noticeable presence in that city and are a catalyst to why the housing market there is as expensive as it is (they're major investors), along with geographic constraints, location, labor fees, so on. It is not just Hong Kongers either, it gets specific groups of people from specific areas of the planet that few other cities worldwide could match (I.E. various Southeast Asians, Punjabis, Hmongs, so on).
To people in the Pacific Rim, Vancouver is often viewed as a safe investment and place to stash your money from the volatile markets in the Pacific Rim. The area in general is a production powerhouse for foreign film agencies and it happens to have the most benign climate in Canada. It is a similar sort of situation to what applies to Honolulu, while not entirely exact.
Vancouver in general is increasingly Asian dominated, much of which contributes to the city's economic industries and in general compromise a wholly large segment of its population (visiting families, visiting friends, having to go there for work, having to attend some convention, or even a religious event). Even by conventional methods to actually visit a place, it has more people visiting family members there than the average North American city. It is certainly far more foreign than Montreal, which always helps getting people from overseas to come.
Hong Kongers are wealthier than the normal Asian, its translated heavily into what Vancouver looks like now and who goes there and for what reasons now.
Another way to put it, the way Venezuelans and Columbians (and other South Americans) view Miami is similar, although not completely exact, to the way various Asians view Vancouver, especially among Southeast Asians, from more authoritarian sort of places. Caracas, Venezuela is going south, its getting worse and the city leads the planet in homicides and just about anyone with money and the means to leave has left for Miami or New York. Vancouver is a major recipient of Asian people from across the Pacific Rim in a similar manner, especially from some of the more dysfunctional Southeast Asian countries.
I don't know if these aspects are what put Vancouver over San Francisco, it could just be proximity to the United States like you mentioned, but even if it was further away from the United States, I would still expect the visitor numbers to be large just off its natural advantages (the population, the social connections, the cultural connections, the economical connections, and above all else -- the investment portfolio).
Last edited by Trafalgar Law; 09-24-2015 at 01:12 PM..
I'm surprised Philadelphia didn't make the list. So much American history in that city. If I was a foreign visitor I would certainly pick it over some of the cities that did make the list.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Red John
Vancouver has the largest population of expat Hong Kong people outside of Hong Kong, it actually has more Hong Kong people than all of Mainland China itself. They are by far and away the most noticeable presence in that city and are a catalyst to why the housing market there is as expensive as it is (they're major investors), along with geographic constraints, location, labor fees, so on. It is not just Hong Kongers either, it gets specific groups of people from specific areas of the planet that few other cities worldwide could match (I.E. various Southeast Asians, Punjabis, Hmongs, so on).
To people in the Pacific Rim, Vancouver is often viewed as a safe investment and place to stash your money from the volatile markets in the Pacific Rim. The area in general is a production powerhouse for foreign film agencies and it happens to have the most benign climate in Canada. It is a similar sort of situation to what applies to Honolulu, while not entirely exact.
Vancouver in general is increasingly Asian dominated, much of which contributes to the city's economic industries and in general compromise a wholly large segment of its population (visiting families, visiting friends, having to go there for work, having to attend some convention, or even a religious event). Even by conventional methods to actually visit a place, it has more people visiting family members there than the average North American city. It is certainly far more foreign than Montreal, which always helps getting people from overseas to come.
Hong Kongers are wealthier than the normal Asian, its translated heavily into what Vancouver looks like now and who goes there and for what reasons now.
Another way to put it, the way Venezuelans and Columbians (and other South Americans) view Miami is similar, although not completely exact, to the way various Asians view Vancouver, especially among Southeast Asians, from more authoritarian sort of places. Caracas, Venezuela is going south, its getting worse and the city leads the planet in homicides and just about anyone with money and the means to leave has left for Miami or New York. Vancouver is a major recipient of Asian people from across the Pacific Rim in a similar manner, especially from some of the more dysfunctional Southeast Asian countries.
I don't know if these aspects are what put Vancouver over San Francisco, it could just be proximity to the United States like you mentioned, but even if it was further away from the United States, I would still expect the visitor numbers to be large just off its natural advantages (the population, the social connections, the cultural connections, the economical connections, and above all else -- the investment portfolio).
Awesome post that I agree with, and you usually bring the heat with statistics and factual analysis. Just to nitpick, San Salvador leads the planet in homicides--Caracas is very high, though (might be second actually).
I'm surprised Philadelphia didn't make the list. So much American history in that city. If I was a foreign visitor I would certainly pick it over some of the cities that did make the list.
That's okay. At least we were in consideration. Last year was a great year for tourism. 39.7 Million visitors with 14 Million staying over night.
Miami has less visitors on here than the data from the actual government...really odd. The Euromonitor one looks more accurate IMO. Miami was over 5 million before you include Mexico and Canada so being over 6 million makes sense vs. the 4 million visitors.
I'm surprised Philadelphia didn't make the list. So much American history in that city. If I was a foreign visitor I would certainly pick it over some of the cities that did make the list.
Philly is cool, but it's also not very well known outside of the US regardless of its history. And a lot of people around the world aren't as interested in our history as we are.
By the way, here is the amount spent per visitor from the list you posted:
1. Los Angeles - $1423.08
2. NYC - $1418.09
3. Miami - $1415.93
4. San Francisco - $1415.93
5. DC - $1407.77
6. Chicago - $1404.26
7. Boston - $1402.44
8. Mexico City - $815.60
9. Vancouver - $718.09
10. Toronto - $574.16
11. Montreal - $566.04
Very interesting that the difference between #7 (Boston) and #1 (Los Angeles) is only $20.64 on average per visitor.
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