What are the most popular or most visited cities in Europe? It’s a question asked a lot, but only a few people can answer. Fortunately, there is ‘Euromonitor International’s city arrivals’ survey which publishes every year the figures of the top 100 most visited destinations in the world. In the top 100, 32 cities are located in Europe, as you can see in the table below. The three most popular cities in Europe are #1 London, #2 Paris and #3 Istanbul.

Euromonitor‘s annual survey only counts international visitors who spend at least one night at their destination, so domestic tourism is not included. This means that destinations in large countries score relatively less high than destinations in small countries. German and French cities, for example, are also frequently visited by the many people who live in Germany and France. The same goes for the United Kingdom, Spain and Italy.

It is also important to understand that people can count double if they have visited more than one destination in a year for a period of at least 24 hours (= one night), this applies for example to business travellers. Day trippers such as cruise passengers are not counted, as are expats and international students who study or do an internship. The focus is on “city hubs”, not on beach and winter destinations. Nevertheless, a number of typical beach destinations can be found in the list, namely Antalya, Mugla (Bodrum, Marmaris, Fethiye) and Rhodes.

Most visited cities in Europe (international visitors)

* The 2019 Edition of Euromonitor contains real figures from 2018 and predictions for 2019