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Hong Kong, other Asian cities shut out of world’s top 10 tourist destinations amid tough travel restrictions
- Paris and other European cities dominate the list compiled by Euromonitor International, owing to their more relaxed travel policies
- Hong Kong ranked 49th in the Top 100 City Destinations Index 2021, falling eight spots from 2020. In 2019, it placed 26th
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The stringent approach of many Asian cities to shutting out Covid-19 may have kept case numbers in check and taken some pressure off local economies. But it has done nothing for their global standing as tourism destinations.
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Asian cities are nowhere to be seen in the top 10 of an index ranking the world’s best destinations. Paris and other European cities dominate the list compiled by Euromonitor International, owing to their more relaxed travel policies amid the pandemic.
The Top 100 City Destinations Index 2021 tracks 54 different metrics across six key pillars to generate an overall attractiveness score. The pillars are tourism performance, economic and business performance, tourism policy and attractiveness, tourism infrastructure, health and safety and sustainability.
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The ranking was first launched in 2019, doing away with the research firm’s previous metric of solely measuring the number of visitor arrivals – an index which Hong Kong topped for a decade until 2018.
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