Play store
New York has been named the world’s most attractive tourism city in the 2026 Global Tourism City Attractiveness Index, a new demand-driven ranking that measures how strongly destinations capture global travelers’ attention and emotional appeal through online conversations.
The index, released on July 16 by Yanolja Research, was jointly developed with Purdue University’s CHRIBA Institute in the United States and Kyung Hee University’s H&T Analytics Center in Seoul. It analyzes global social media data in 14 languages provided by Brandwatch to assess how travelers perceive and discuss destinations.
Unlike traditional tourism rankings that focus on infrastructure, visitor numbers or other supply-side indicators, the index evaluates cities based on what travelers actually talk about, remember and value emotionally.
New York claimed the top spot in the 2026 rankings, followed by Paris in second place. Japan’s Osaka and Kyoto ranked third and fourth respectively, while Seoul completed the top five.
The rest of the top 10 included London, Rome, Bangkok, Okinawa and Chicago.
Researchers said the findings suggest that a city’s tourism appeal is increasingly shaped not only by iconic landmarks but also by memorable, emotionally engaging and shareable visitor experiences.
The United States recorded the strongest overall presence in the rankings, with 16 cities in the global top 50 and 19 in the top 100. Besides New York and Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Washington, D.C., Boston, Dallas, Tampa, San Francisco and Houston all secured places in the top 30.
Other U.S. cities making the top 100 included Atlanta, Seattle, Las Vegas, Orlando, Philadelphia, Denver, San Diego, Nashville and New Orleans, reflecting the country’s diverse range of cultural, business, entertainment and leisure destinations.
Asian cities also performed strongly, particularly in the index’s “affective attractiveness” category, which measures positive emotions, visitor satisfaction and destination appeal.
Japan dominated this category, with Osaka and Kyoto ranking first and second, while Okinawa, Tokyo, Nagoya, Fukuoka and Yokohama also featured prominently.
South Korea also posted strong results, with Seoul ranking fifth overall and fourth in affective attractiveness. Other South Korean cities in the global top 100 included Busan, Jeju, Incheon and Daegu.
Thailand was another standout performer, with Bangkok ranked eighth overall and Chiang Mai placing 27th.
The Global Tourism City Attractiveness Index is built on two key measures: cognitive awareness, which evaluates a city’s global visibility and presence in travel-related discussions, and affective attractiveness, which assesses travelers’ emotional responses and perceptions of a destination’s quality and memorability.
The ranking is based on the Push-Pull Motivation Framework and Destination Image Theory and analyzes 419 tourism-related keywords across four areas: urban aesthetics and natural scenery, culture and history, tourism experiences, and hospitality.
According to the researchers, the index offers a new way of understanding tourism competitiveness by focusing on traveler perceptions and emotional engagement rather than conventional tourism statistics.