Our city of tourists
KUALA Lumpur has one of the highest number of tourists per square kilometre, at 367 international visitors per day. The national capital of Malaysia, which ranked sixth, receives nearly double the amount of tourists per sq km than Tokyo, Japan.
This is according to a study conducted by travel insurance company Columbus Direct.
With over 12 million international visitors last year, KL sees 34,466 tourists per day exploring its many urban skyscrapers and cultural landmarks. The city area of KL is about 243 sq km, with an estimated population of about 1.8 million at 2017.
Columbus Direct travel insurance expert Stuart Lloyd said the study illustrated the importance of tourism to a country’s economy.
“Tourism is hugely important for all major cities across the globe, particularly for those where there is a high density of international visitors.
“It is great to see the popularity of some of the world’s most cultural and historic cities, with millions of tourists travelling across the globe to visit them each year,” he said.
The most densely tourist populated city is Phuket in Thailand, at an overwhelming 5,090 international visitors against a city area of only about 12 sq km.
This is followed by Palma de Mallorca (2,918), Pattaya (2,762), Paris (1,174) and Barcelona (605).
On the opposite end of the scale, Hong Kong has the lowest concentration of tourists with a more modest 58 visitors per square kilometre each day.
London ranks second for the fewest number of tourists per square kilometre each day at 89. However, the British capital receives the second-highest number of international visitors per year overall, at a whopping 19.8 million tourists.
The study took into account the total number of international visitors from Mastercard’s Global Destination Cities Index and divided that number by 365 to reveal how many visitors there were per day.
This is assuming a one night stay for each visitor. –