Embrace the wisdom of crowds by adding the world’s most visited tourist attractions on your Bucket List.
Ever heard of Everland and Lotte World? Most Americans have never planned a trip to the South Korean amusement parks, but they rank among the world’s 50 most visited tourist attractions, beat the great pyramids (4 million), Taj Mahal (3 million) and Stonehenge (1 million). And there are more surprises.
How we choose to spend our vacation time, says a lot about what we value, and despite or perhaps because of-the continuing global economic crisis, we travel more than ever. International tourists were up 6.6 percent in 2010 according to World Tourism Organization. China deposed Spain as the third most visited country with 55.7 million foreign arrivals, while France and the U.S. held their first and second place ranking.
Like it or not, amusement parks just as appealing in these countries when they are in South Korea. Disneyland Paris drew the same number of visitors (10.5 million) as the Sacre-Coeur, and two of the world’s 10 most visited tourist attractions are Disney parks. America also dominates our list. Some credit goes to the weak U.S. dollar, which drew 8.7 percent more foreign tourists in 2010 than the previous year and probably caused many Americans to explore within our vast borders.
To tally up the world’s most visited attractions, we gathered the latest information from the sites themselves or from government agencies, industry reports, and reputable media. So what is the most visited tourist attraction in the world? And 39.2 million people can be wrong?
View Top 5 Most-Visited Tourist Attractions
Destination No. 1 Times Square, New York City
Destination No. 2 Central Park, New York City
Destination No. 3 Union Station, Washington, D.C.
Destination No. 4 Las Vegas Strip
Destination No. 5 Niagara Falls, New York and Ontario
Visits: 86
