Makkah ranks second globally for highest tourist spending

The holy city of Makkah in Saudi Arabia has been ranked as the second city in the world in terms of tourist spending in 2017, with international tourists spending $18.45 billion last year, according to a study by Mastercard.

The study ranked top 20 cities globally on the basis of the money spent by international tourists in the form of overnight spending.

Dubai tops the ranking globally where tourists spend the most. In 2017, tourists shelled out $29.7 billion in Dubai.

Makkah and Dubai are the only two cities from the Middle East in the ranking of 20 cities, while Turkey ranks 19th.

Within the Middle East & Africa region, Makkah again ranks second in terms of the total number of international tourists. While Dubai topped the ranking in MEA hosting 15.79 million visitors last year, Makkah came second with the international visitors totaling 9.18 million in 2017.

In terms of average length of stay of these international overnight visitors in MEA, Makkah tops the region with visitors spending 14.9 days, the Mastercard study revealed.