2018’s top destinations
ACCORDING to statistics from World Travel Monitor by worldwide tourism consultancy IPK Internatonal, the tourism industry has registered continuous growth in international trips all over the world this year.
The report states that international outbound trips grew by 6% worldwide in the first eight months of the year, with Asia and South America recording the highest increase.
Also, after a decline in the past few years, European outbound travel increased by 5% in the first eight months of this year.
Here are the top destinations that tourists from around the world travelled to in 2018.
Top 3 in Asia
According to travel booking portal Agoda, Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia are the third mostbooked city and country, in Asia.
Japan is the top most-booked country, and Thailand the second. Bangkok and Tokyo are in first and second place for most-booked city.
Other Asian cities that are popular with travellers this year include Hong Kong, Osaka, Taipei, Seoul, Singapore, Bali and Pattaya.
In Europe, the top countries for travellers in 2018 are Britain, Italy and France.
The top three European cities are London, Paris and Rome, while Barcelona, Istanbul, Amsterdam, Milan, Madrid, Venice and Prague also made the list.
In the United States, top cities for travellers are Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, Orlando San Francisco, Chicago, Phoenix, Houston, Oahu (Hawaii) and San Diego.
Although different destinations are popular with travellers from different areas, globally, the top cities that travellers visited in 2018 are Bangkok, London and Las Vegas.
The top destination countries for travellers from Europe are Britain, Thailand and the US, while the top destination cities are London, Bangkok and Pattaya.
Australian travellers favour Australia, Indonesia and Japan as their top destination countries, with their most-booked cities being Bali, Sydney and Melbourne.
Chinese travellers prefer China, Japan and Thailand, with their top destination cities being Hong Kong, Tokyo and Bangkok.
Japanese travellers meanwhile prefer Japan, Thailand and South Korea, with their top destination cities being Tokyo, Osaka and Seoul.
Popular with Singaporeans
For visitors from Asia Pacific, Malaysia ranks #1 as a destination country for Singapore travellers, favouring places like Johor Baru, Kuala Lumpur and Melaka.
Malaysia ranks #2 as a destination country for Indonesian travellers who enjoy travelling to KL.
How about Malaysian travellers?
Malaysians prefer to travel domestically in 2018.
For travels overseas, their top destination countries are Thailand and Indonesia.
The top destination cities booked by Malaysians this year are KL, Penang, Melaka, Johor Baru, Kota Kinabalu, Bangkok (Thailand), Ipoh, Cameron Highlands, Kuching, and Kuantan.