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Mastercard Unveils Top Cities for Shopping

Home might be where the heart is, but travel opens the door to two of life’s biggest pleasures: dining and shopping. With Global Destination Cities Index: Indulgences, Mastercard takes a deep dive into where visitors spend the most on dining and shopping around the world.

The Mastercard Global Destination Cities Index ranks 162 cities in terms of total international overnight visitors and the amount spent by visitors in the destination cities in 2017. With Mastercard Global Destination Cities Index: Indulgences, we look at the amount spent within those cities on dining and shopping. The amount isn’t insignificant, nor is the impact those dollars have on cities’ local economies and the wallets of travelers who go there.

GDCI: Indulgences reveals that travelers are also spending big in Dubai and London when it comes to shopping, whether purchasing clothes, souvenirs or other goods. That said, visitors to London, Seoul and Johannesburg, in particular, might want to bring a bigger suitcase. International travelers to all three are spending at least 40 percent of their travel budgets on shopping.

There are eight cities on the top list for dining and seven cities on the top list for shopping that are also a part of the Mastercard Priceless Cities experiential travel platform where travelers from over 90 countries can access unique and unforgettable experiences in over 40 cities around the world.

Top Global Cities for Shopping, Ranked by Dollars Spent
  City 2017 Expenditure on Shopping (US$ billions) 2017 Expenditure (US$ billions) 2017 Share of Overall Expenditure Spent on Shopping
1 Dubai, UAE $8.91 $29.70 30.0%
2 London $8.54 $17.45 49.0%
3 Makkah, Saudi Arabia $5.76 $18.45 31.2%
4 Tokyo, Japan $5.13 $11.91 43.1%
5 Singapore, Singapore $4.70 $17.02 27.6%
6 Bangkok, Thailand $3.75 $16.36 22.9%
7 Seoul, Korea $3.42 $7.21 47.4%
8 New York $3.40 $16.10 21.1%
9 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia $2.69 $8.59 31.3%
10 Paris $2.42 $13.05 18.5%
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