Cities in Asia Pacific now make up nearly half of the world’s Top 20 cities for visitor arrivals and expenditure, according to the MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index released June 11.

The index ranks cities in terms of their total international visitor arrivals and cross-border spending in the destination cities. The index also gives visitor and passenger growth forecasts for 2012.

Asia Pacific also ranked high on the visitor-spending scale. Bangkok ranked third globally with USD 19.3 billion expected to be spent by inbound passengers in 2012, a 16.6 percent jump from last year.

London topped the list of world’s cities by visitor numbers with 16.9 million inbound passengers expected in 2012, ahead of Paris in second place with 16 million inbound passengers expected. Singapore (fourth), Hong Kong (sixth) and Kuala Lumpur (10th) also feature in the Top 10 global cities.

In terms of growth in visitor numbers, six out of the Top 20 fastest-growing cities in the index are located in Asia Pacific, with Tokyo second globally behind Rio de Janeiro (28.6 percent) with a 21.5 percent growth in visitor arrivals. Taipei and Beijing featured in both the Top 10 growth cities by visitor arrivals and cross-border spending.

MasterCard Worldwide’s global economic advisor Dr. Yuwa Hedrick-Wong said while cities in Europe and the United States still ranked highly in the index, the number of emerging market cities featuring in the index shows Asia’s growing role in the global economy.