Emerging tourist destinations like Bangkok, Cape Town and Istanbul are facing growing tourism momentum and increased pressures, according to a new global report on city readiness for tourism growth.
In a recently released report from the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), of the 1.4 billion international visitors who crossed borders in 2018 for tourism purposes, nearly half (45%) traveled to cities.
But some destinations are more prepared to sustain the rise in city tourism than others.
In the category of “Emerging Performers” cities like Bangkok, Cape Town, Delhi, Ho Chi Minh City, Istanbul, Jakarta and Mexico City were described as having a lower level of urban readiness and increased pressures related to tourism growth.
That compares to cities like Beijing, Chicago, Dubai, Hong Kong, Munich, Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo and Washington DC, which are grouped under the category “Balanced Dynamics” for boasting established urban readiness and tourism infrastructure, with additional breathing room for visitor growth.
To chart a city’s readiness, authors assessed cities on seven different factors: scale of travel and tourism, concentration and density of tourist activity, scale of leisure drivers, scale of business drivers, urban readiness for growth, policy engagement and crunch or the level of strain that the local tourism economy places on the city overall.
