World's most visited cities, plus more

Dear Globetrotter:

Welcome to the 461st issue of your monthly foreign-travel magazine, the one that depends on its subscribers — frequent travelers like you — to provide articles and letters describing their adventures outside of the US, including destination discoveries, travel tips and reviews of tours, hotels, cruises, etc.

Publishing since 1976, ITN was the FIRST travel publication to print candid accounts from pay-your-own-way international travelers (instead of articles by freelance writers being rewarded for providing purely positive coverage).

After your next trip outside of the US, consider submitting a Feature Article to ITN. Feature Articles must include photos taken by you or a travel companion on your trip (not images off the Internet), and they can run from several hundred words up to about 1,500 words or more. 

What to put in a Feature Article? Simply recount the highlights of your latest adventure or write in depth about one portion of it — a rewarding destination, a pleasant surprise or a memorable encounter. Perhaps your trip had a particular theme. Or you could share any advice or tricks of travel that might improve someone else’s visit someplace. 

Just write the story as if you’re telling your friends the highlights — and low points — of your last trip. It was your experience, so you’re qualified to write about it; no degree in writing is required. Get your thoughts down on paper; ITN editors will take care of fixing spelling and grammar, where necessary. Recording on paper your colorful descriptions and sharing what you did, felt and learned are the important things.

Send your Feature Article directly to our Features Editor, Beth Habian; email beth@intltravelnews.com or write to her at Box 1148, Florence, OR 97439. Include the mailing address at which you receive ITN.

(Any emails or letters OTHER than Feature Articles, including shorter items for our Travelers’ Intercom section, should come here to our main office in Sacramento. Email editor@intltravelnews.com or write to ITN, 2116 28th St., Sacramento, CA 95818.)

When a Feature Article is printed in ITN, the author receives a one-year renewal to his or her subscription as well as a complimentary one-year subscription to give as a gift. 

So be thinking about how you would creatively present a portion of a recent trip or what bits of knowledge you could put together and submit with a selection of photos.

Meanwhile, let’s talk about places to go.

In 2013, Bangkok was the world’s most visited city, barely edging out London, according to the MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index (http://insights.mastercard.com/position-papers/top-20-global-destination...). Thailand’s capital attracted 15.98 million overnight visitors last year, while the United Kingdom’s capital drew 15.96 million.

Of the top 10, the other cities were Paris, 13.92 million; Singapore, 11.75 million; New York, 11.52; Istanbul, 10.37; Dubai, 9.89; Kuala Lumpur, 9.2; Hong Kong, 8.72, and Barcelona, 8.41.

As of late, destinations in Asia and the Middle East are the fastest-growing destinations for tourists. In terms of growth, Dubai led the pack with a 10.9% growth in visits in 2013, followed by Bangkok at 9.8% and Istanbul at 9.5%. London, 2012’s leader in visitors, grew only 3.3% while Paris, traditionally one of the world’s most visited cities, actually saw a drop in tourists, with 0.7% fewer than in 2012. 

Spending by tourists tells a different story, however. Despite attracting 4.46 million more visitors, Bangkok was well behind the leader in tourist spending, New York City, earning $4.3 billion less from its tourists than New York’s total take, $18.6 billion. London and Paris also earned more from their visitors, leaving Bangkok at number four, though it still showed the highest spending growth at 11.4%.

By region, London maintained its top position in Europe, both in number of visitors and spending. Mexico City was the top destination in Latin America, although São Paulo was the biggest earner and Lima, Peru, experienced the highest growth in both categories.

Dubai was far and away the top destination city in the Middle East and Africa (the index places Istanbul in Europe), with its 9.89 million visitors spending over $10 billion, beating Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, by 4.9 million visitors and $7 billion in tourist spending. In North America, New York still maintains a comfortable lead over Los Angeles.

Having provided the above figures, we can loosely compare them with the results of ITN’s call for subscribers to answer the question “Where Were You in 2013?”

In a tradition started by ITN’s late publisher, Armond Noble, each year we ask all of our subscribers to tell us — by email, postcard, pigeon or whatever — where they traveled to in the previous calendar year. And we reward a lucky few, chosen at random, for doing so.

After I shared only a small portion of the previous poll’s results last year, a number of subscribers requested that I list ALL of the destinations visited by ITN subscribers, showing where they fell in the ranking from most visited to least visited, and even name the countries that no ITN subscribers went to. I’ll do that now with the results of our latest poll, “Where Were You in 2013?” After which I’ll reveal who won the prize drawings. 

So what country or destination is the leader for having the most visits by ITN subscribers last year? At No. 1, with 23.6% of the respondents having visited it, it’s Italy! Holding place No. 2, with 19.5% going there, is Germany, then 3. France (18.9%), 4. Great Britain (18.4%) and 5. Spain (13.8%).

I should point out that, in these results of our unofficial poll, we are including overseas territories administered by other countries, and, to distinguish them from sovereign nations, each is shown in italics font and followed with, in parentheses, its “parent” country. The only other outliers on this list, places not really classified as “countries,” are Antarctica and Western Sahara.

Now, continuing our ranking of destinations according to numbers of visits by readers of this magazine, there is a tie, between Turkey and Canada, for sixth place. They’re followed by 8. Mexico, 9. China, 10. Greece (visited by 10.3% of the respondents), 11. Croatia and Russia, 13. Australia and Austria, 15. the Netherlands, 16. Portugal, Thailand and the UAE, 19. Costa Rica, 20. Japan, 21. Argentina, India and Ireland 24. Estonia, Montenegro and Singapore, 27. Vietnam, 28. Denmark and Norway, 30. Myanmar and South Africa, 32. Chile, Finland, Iceland and Malaysia, 36. Cambodia and Oman (each mentioned by 5.1% of the respondents), 38. Belgium, Brazil, Colombia and Romania, 42. Bulgaria, Indonesia and Latvia, 45. Czech Republic, Honduras, Poland, Sweden and Ukraine, 50. Belize, Lithuania, New Zealand, Panama, Slovenia and Switzerland, 56. Bosnia & Herzegovina, Cuba, Ecuador, Jordan and Sri Lanka, 61. Egypt, Guatemala, Hungary, Israel, Malta, Morocco and Serbia, 68. Aruba (Netherlands), Bhutan, South Korea and Uruguay, 72. Albania, Monaco, Mongolia, Peru and St. Lucia, 77. Georgia, Nicaragua, Tanzania and Uzbekistan, 81. Fiji, Kazakhstan and Vanuatu, 84. Barbados, Botswana, Cyprus, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Slovakia, Taiwan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, 93. Azerbaijan, Benin, Cape Verde, Ethiopia, French Polynesia (France), Ghana, Grenada, Kenya, Laos, Namibia, Senegal and Zimbabwe, 105. Antigua & Barbuda, Armenia, Cayman Islands (United Kingdom), Dominica, French Guiana (France), Sierra Leone and Togo, 111. Angola, Antarctica, Dominican Republic, Gambia, Greenland (Denmark), Luxembourg, the Philippines, Qatar, São Tomé & Príncipe, St. Maarten (Netherlands) and Zambia, 122. Curaçao (Netherlands), Eritrea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Kosovo, Macedonia, North Korea, Suriname, Uganda and Vatican City, 132. Andorra, Azores (Portugal), Bahamas, Bahrain, Bonaire (Netherlands), Djibouti, El Salvador, Gibraltar (United Kingdom), Guinea, Haiti, Kuwait, Liberia, Liechtenstein, Madagascar and New Caledonia (France) (all at 1%), 147. Bermuda (United Kingdom), British Virgin Islands (United Kingdom), Brunei, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Jamaica, Lesotho, Maldives, Moldova, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Samoa, St. Barthélemy (France) and St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Swaziland and Western Sahara, 165. Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Gabon, Iraq, Libya, Malawi, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Niger, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Solomon Islands, St. Kitts & Nevis, Saint-Martin (France), Sudan, Trinidad & Tobago, Tunisia and Turks & Caicos Islands (United Kingdom), 188. Algeria, Bolivia, Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Falkland Islands (United Kingdom), Faroe Islands (Denmark), Kiribati, Lesser Antilles (United Kingdom), Martinique (France), Nigeria, Pakistan, Paraguay, Pitcairn Island (United Kingdom), Seychelles, Somalia, Saint-Pierre & Miquelon (France), Tonga, Venezuela and Yemen.

No subscribers reported visiting the following countries: Burundi, Comoros, Lebanon, Mauritius, Nauru, Palau, South Sudan, Syria, Timor-Leste or Tuvalu.

So that’s the distribution. This information helps us in promoting the magazine to potential advertisers. (The more advertising there is in an issue, the more pages we can print, so whenever you contact a travel firm that you read about in ITN, tell them where you learned about them!) Knowing what places you’re traveling to also helps in some editorial decisions.

We thank all of you who participated in our informal poll, and, as promised, we gathered up all the entries and held random drawings for prizes. We felt it would be appropriate, for the year 2013, to give away 13 prizes. And (cue drumroll) here are the prizes and the names of the winners.

FIVE participants each will be sent a 50-dollar gift certificate from Magellan’s Travel Supplies (800/962-4943, www.magellans.com), and their names are James Stefan of Sarasota, FL; Nancy DiPietra of Costa Mesa, CA; Paul Wheeler of Birmingham, MI; Ann Melody of Sugar Grove, IL, and Dale Roberts of Chicago, IL.

Each of the following participants will receive one-year extensions to their ITN subscriptions: Gary Koenig of Albany, CA; Albert Jans of Swift Current, Saskatchewan, Canada; Tom & Lynn Meadows of Truckee, CA, and Helga Smith of New York, NY.

And the following four people or couples each will receive an ITN mug: Jim & Carol Heckman of Troy, MI; Margo Spears of Newman Lake, WA; Kathleen Jewett of Kailua Kona, HI, and Paula Owens of Charlotte, NC.

In 2015, we’ll be asking where you went THIS year and passing out more prizes, so please keep track.

Karlene Duke of Winter Springs, Florida, wrote, “I would like a complimentary copy of ITN to be sent to my son and daughter-in-law, who are starting to travel more frequently. My husband and I have been subscribers for many years. Many thanks for good articles over the years. ITN is a very special publication.”

Thank you, Karlene. Your son and daughter-in-law will be sent a free copy of the next-printed issue. We’ll send such a copy to anyone anywhere upon request.

Ron Carlson of Lakeland, Minnesota, wrote, “I am enjoying my first complimentary copy of ITN after a long absence from years of subscribing and contributing with emailed tips, entries for the “Funniest Thing” section and even a couple of articles back in the day. ITN is still a good read and a practical and valuable source. Count me in.”

Erika Daileda of Torrance, California, wrote, “Thank you for providing travelers around the world with such an informative and interesting magazine. I anxiously await each issue every month and enjoy not only learning about new places that subscribers have visited but reliving memories of many of the places my husband and I have already visited.

“I look forward to reading many more issues of ITN as well as visiting and experiencing more countries around the globe. How fortunate we are to live in a time when international travel is, for the most part, so easy!”

And we hope that something you read in this issue of ITN will make it even easier or, at the least, will inspire a visit to someplace new. Afterward, tell us how it went. Pass along your travel knowledge.    — DT