London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Oct 01, 2025

Hong Kong will keep crown as world’s top destination for visitors in 2019 despite protests, research firm Euromonitor forecasts

City to beat Bangkok to top spot for tourists again in 2019, keeping No 1 ranking for tenth straight year, British-based company says. Firm forecasts foreign arrivals to the city will drop 8.7 per cent to 26.71 million

Hong Kong will keep its spot as the world’s No 1 tourist destination for the tenth consecutive year in 2019, with pre-July arrivals – mainly from mainland China – mitigating the subsequent visitor slump caused by citywide protests, a research firm has predicted.

Visitor numbers will drop 8.7 per cent to 26.71 million for this year, according to data from Euromonitor International. Predicted growth of 6.9 per cent in second-placed Bangkok’s numbers would not be enough for it to take top spot, leaving the Thai capital on 25.84 million arrivals.

The British-based research company ranked those two cities, plus London, Macau, Singapore, Paris, Dubai, New York, Kuala Lumpur and Istanbul, the 10 most popular destinations for 2018, having studied foreign visitor statistics across 400 cities.

Foreign visitors are defined as people who visit another country for more than 24 hours, for a period not exceeding 12 months.
In Hong Kong’s case – as well as that of Macau – it includes mainland Chinese visitors, who made up 78 per cent of the city’s total arrivals in the first 10 months of this year.

Euromonitor estimated global inbound arrivals would jump 4.2 per cent to 1.5 billion in 2019, with the top 100 cities, their total arrival numbers up 6.2 per cent from a year earlier, accounting for nearly 47 per cent of the total.

It said Hong Kong’s attractiveness as a destination arose from its proximity to the mainland, its vibrant shopping and a strong cultural heritage.

Simon Haven, senior analyst at Euromonitor, noted that Hong Kong was starting from a strong base ahead of Bangkok, adding that the gap was going to narrow considerably in 2019.

“The thing people forget is that the protests only really started to have an impact on arrivals in July, so that means that between January and June the numbers were very strong,” he said.

“If you look just over the first six months, the increase in arrivals was 14 per cent over the last year, so that’s a very strong performance in terms of arrivals. Only as of July, August, September did the numbers start to drop.”

Anti-government protests have gripped the city for just under six months, having been sparked by an extradition bill which has since been withdrawn. Demonstrations have regularly descended into clashes between residents and police, with the former hurling bricks and petrol bombs, and the latter responding with tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon. Radical protesters have attacked railway stations and other transport links, causing travel disruption, as well as targeting businesses with perceived mainland links.

The disturbances have particularly hit popular tourist districts such as Causeway Bay, Tsim Sha Tsui, Jordan, Yau Ma Tei and Mong Kok.

In October, arrivals to Hong Kong were down 43.7 per cent year on year to 3.31 million – the biggest drop since May 2003 – with more than 40 jurisdictions worldwide issuing warnings or alerts for travellers heading to the city.

New cross-border transport infrastructure, such as the 55km Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge and the 23km local stretch of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link would provide consistent growth in arrivals from the mainland, Euromonitor said.

“Travel is resilient,” said Agilson Valle, a country manager with the company.

Citing the examples of London, Paris and Istanbul – all cities that suffered terrorist attacks in 2018 and still made it onto the top 10 list –Valle said “people forget” and the outlook was positive for Hong Kong.



But Paul Chan Chi-yuen, co-founder of Walk in Hong Kong, which runs guided tours in the city, was less optimistic.

“Terrorist attacks are one-off in nature, but Hong Kong’s political unrest is a sustained internal conflict,” he said.

“And the conflict involves the source of the city’s largest group of overseas visitors,” he added, referring to the anger aimed at mainland China generally.

Meanwhile, Shenzhen dropped three places to 13th in Euromonitor’s Top 100 cities list this year, behind Istanbul (10th), New Delhi (11th) and Antalya (12th).

“Turkey picked up quite a lot in the number of arrivals because of the devaluation of the Turkish lira, and it became a safer place again so Europeans started going back,” Valle said. “It was more Istanbul and Antalya growing in the number of visitors, not necessarily Shenzhen losing a lot.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
×