Sponsor 
ASIA-PACIFIC – SINGAPORE, JULY 2011 – MasterCard Worldwide has launched MasterCardCities.com, a new microsite that offers a unique tool to discover the connectedness of the world’s premier destination cities, based on international air travel and cross-border spending trends.
MasterCardCities.com features an interactive world map of international air travel between 132 cities across the world, which were part of the recently released MasterCard Worldwide Index of Global Destination Cities. The MasterCard Index offers data and insights on the connectivity between global cities. The new study is led by Dr Yuwa Hedrick-Wong, Global Economic Advisor, MasterCard Worldwide.
While the international flow of capital and the trade of goods and services have been meticulously measured and documented, the same cannot be said of the human dimension of globalization. International travel is a powerful trend that shapes global commerce and underpins the growth of key industries such as transportation, retail, and hospitality, and professional services like marketing and advertising.
The economic and business impacts of international travel are especially pronounced in cities that are popular destinations of international travelers. In these destination cities, spending by international visitors contributes significantly to local commerce and business activities, amplifying the dynamism of these urban economies.
The global map on MasterCardCities.com sorts data by top origin cities of visitors or by the most popular outbound destinations from each city. Additionally, the map offers detailed breakdowns of how much travelers are spending in each city, total number of inbound and outbound visitors and the overall percentage of business travelers.
MasterCard Index of Global Destination Cities revealed that Asia/Pacific was highly represented by international passenger arrivals with eight cities featuring in the top 20 globally. Among those, Bangkok ranked third, projected to have 11.5 million visitors this year, followed by Singapore in fourth rank with 11.4 million visitors and Hong Kong fifth with 10.9 million visitors.
The region also performed well based on visitor spending. Bangkok is ranked fourth globally with an expected US$14.4 billion to be spent by inbound passengers in 2011; Sydney ranked sixth with US$13.8 billion, Singapore ranked ninth with US$10.8 billion and Hong Kong tenth with US$10.4 billion.
