Paris is once again the world’s top tourist destination, France’s regional tourism body has declared, a month after authorities angrily dismissed reports that London had overtaken the French capital as the world’s most popular city, reprots The Daily Telegraph.
Despite some tough global economic conditions, it said 2013 was an “exceptional year” for tourism in Paris and the surrounding Ile-de-France region, with foreign visitors at “the highest level in 10 years”.
In all, some 32.3 million tourists flocked to the City of Lights, hotel figures suggest. Nearly 15.5 million of these were foreign visitors, representing an 8.2 percent increase from the previous year.
The largest number of foreign tourists were Britons – some 2.1 million visitors – followed by Americans, Germans, Italians and Chinese, whose numbers shot up by almost 53 per cent to 881,000.
The only black spot was a drop in French clientele, some 7.5 per cent less than in 2012.
Read more of this report from The Daily Telegraph.