Photo courtesy of VisitLondon.com
The 2012 London Olympics continues to give milk according to a new rating from Mastercard Global Cities Index that makes it the world's most popular city by head visitor head count, ahead of Bangkok and Paris. Civil unrest in Bangkok knocked it off the top spot that it occupied in 2013 as London is expected to reach 18.7 million overnight international visitors in 2014 - 300,000 more visitors than the 2013 top destination city Bangkok. The Index ranks the world's 132 most travelled cities.
London, Paris, Bangkok, Singapore and Dubai are the world's top five cities. Eight of the world's top 20 cities by international overnight visitors are European: Istanbul (seventh), Barcelona (11th), Amsterdam (12th), Milan (13th), Rome (14th) and Vienna (17th).
In June Heathrow opened its new $4.15 billion Terminal 2 providing a home for 23 Star Alliance airlines. The new terminal will help Heathrow and London remain Europe's primary hub. Heathrow facilitates 65,000 flights and 16 million passengers to and from the U.S. every year. The Olympics also redeveloped East London and brought it within the trodden path of tourists giving the city still more attractions to sell.
Though the London Olympics made for a soft 2012 in the city due to the many who avoided it during the Games, 2013, according to the Office of National Statistics International Passenger Survey, brought in more than 16 million international visitors setting a new record. London has been active in keeping itself in the news this year with such cultural events as "Ming: 50 Years that changed China" at the British Museum, "Constable: The Making of a Master" at the V&A and "Rembrandt: The Final Years" at the National Gallery.
The 100th Anniversary of World War I will be commemorated with the re-opening of the Imperial War Museum this month and the "Great War in Portraits" exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. It's also the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth and the Globe's theatre opened an indoor, 350-seat Jacobean theatre, the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse for new productions of Titus Andronicus, Antony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar and The Comedy of Errors.
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