Tourists to spend over £13b in London this year
Tourists and foreign visitors to London will spend over £13b in the city this year, a record-breaking spend focused mainly on hotels, restaurants, and shops.
The visitor total to London was up 6% compared with last year, with foreign tourist spend up 2.3% in the same time frame, underlining the city's continued leadership over other locations including New York and Paris.
This pushed the city ahead of Bangkok (second place), Paris (third) and Dubai (fourth). Istanbul overtook New York, which fell to sixth place, although it attracts far larger numbers of domestic visitors.
Overall, tourism spend in London has grown by more than £3.3b over the past five years.
Commenting on the news, London mayor Boris Johnson, said: "I'm delighted London has proudly held on to this coveted title, as we celebrate another triumphant and record-breaking year for tourism in the city."
He added that London's mix of history, culture, food and creativity would ensure that accolades would keep coming.
These most recent figures are supported by a VisitBritain report in late 2014, which predicted that tourism spend for the whole of Great Britain would reach £22.2b by 2015.
Tourist spend predicted to increase by £1b in 2015 >>
Latest video from The Caterer