Paris is still the world leading tourist destination

The 2022 index of the 100 best destinations by Euromonitor International ranks the most successful cities in terms of economic and business activity that offer the best tourist infrastructures and announce “booming performance”, or in other terms “a deep potential in investment and operation” in a context of “acute digitalisation processes, technological progress and sustainable development”

As Euromonitor International points out, the year 2022 registered a sharp pickup of travels and the tourism sector. This trend in international tourism should also register a 112% growth this year in terms of spending in relation with tourism.

Cities from all over the world saw visits from “travellers who wanted to experience again domestic and international leisure travels” to somehow make for the “travels missed during the pandemic”. The ranking shows that major European cities continue to lead with 40 cities present in the 100 best urban destinations. Paris is at the top of the world ranking, followed by Dubai and Amsterdam. Paris is also first at European scale, followed by Amsterdam and Madrid.

The most attractive European cities in the Top 10 are respectively: Paris, Amsterdam, Madrid, Rome, London, Munich, Berlin, Barcelona, Prague and Lisbon. Outside of Europe, the most attractive European cities in the Top 10 are respectively: Dubai, New York, Los Angeles, Singapore, Tokyo, Orlando, Atlanta, Abu Dhabi, Istanbul and Seoul.

According to Euromonitor, Paris keeps its title of first city in the world mostly due to its exceptional performance in terms of tourist attractiveness and infrastructures. But as most of the guides say, the city of Paris is also “the world hub for arts, fashion, gastronomy and culture”. And as the official Paris tourism website highlights, “Paris would not be Paris without its celebrated monuments”. The website specifies that the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de triomphe, Notre Dame Cathedral the Champs-Elysées, the Louvre or the Sacré Cœur Basilica “recount the history of a 2,000-year-old capital”.

But oddly enough, the Sacré Cœur Basilica in Montmartre, second most visited monument in Paris after Notre-Dame Cathedral (until the fire in 2019) and before the Louvre Museum was not even recognised as historical monument until recently! It is now so, since the Sacré Cœur Basilica, one of the most appreciated monuments, has just been recognised as “historical monument” by the French ministry of culture on 8 December 2022. According to the ministry, the monument is now “an important architectural and urban witness in the complex history of the late 19th century”. 

The ministry of culture underlines that this ranking is part of a “campaign deployed to protect churches in Paris” launched since 2012 in collaboration with Paris authorities. The construction of the Sacré Cœur Basilica in Montmartre started in 1877 after a contest and was financed through a national campaign until the mid-1920’s. The Sacré Cœur Basilica is one of the “most important religious building of the times” built with the plans by architect Paul Abadie. More than 60 artists worked on the decoration of the Parisian Basilica, a “major work in regards of architecture and arts in the 19th and 20th centuries” which are “a testimony to the renewing of arts and mosaics”.

• The Euromonitor International ranking
• Official website of the Tourist Office and Congress in Paris
• the Ministry of Culture website