Seoul tops Tokyo in global tourism attractiveness ranking

Seoul has placed in the top tier of a global city competitiveness ranking for the second consecutive year, reaffirming its appeal as a tourism destination. Domestic regional cities also scored higher on visitor satisfaction than their name recognition would suggest, pointing to strong growth potential through targeted marketing.

Yanolja Research, a global research institution specializing in the travel and tourism industry, held a seminar Thursday to present results of its "Yanolja Attractiveness Index," which evaluates major tourist cities worldwide from the perspective of visitors. The event unveiled this year's findings from the "2026 Global Tourism City Attractiveness Evaluation."

The assessment was conducted jointly with the CHRIBA Institute at Purdue University and the H&T Analytics Center at Kyung Hee University. The number of cities surveyed expanded from 191 the previous year to 261, with the top 200 cities ranked.

In the overall global attractiveness ranking, New York rose from fourth place the previous year to first. On top of leading the name-recognition category, New York swept three other dimensions — scenic beauty and natural landscapes, experiential content, and hospitality — to dominate across the board. Osaka, which had held the top spot the year before, slipped to third overall but ranked first in the newly introduced attractiveness index, indicating it generates the strongest emotional preference among tourists. Paris held second place overall for the second consecutive year and retained its top ranking in the culture and history dimension.

Seoul placed fifth overall, maintaining a top-five position for the second consecutive year and outranking Tokyo, which came in 14th. Seoul also finished fourth in the attractiveness index, reflecting high emotional satisfaction among visitors. By dimension, Seoul ranked third in scenic beauty and natural landscapes, experiential content, and hospitality, and seventh in culture and history — placing in the top 10 across all four dimensions.

Among South Korean cities, Busan (42nd) and Jeju (44th) both made the overall top 50. Incheon, included in the evaluation for the first time this year, ranked 51st, while Daegu came in 88th — placing all five South Korean cities in the top 100.

Unlike conventional assessments focused on tourism infrastructure, the Yanolja Attractiveness Index reflects actual tourist responses. Within the index, name recognition measures how widely known and noticed a city is, based on the volume of social media mentions, while attractiveness measures how positively tourists evaluate a city through sentiment analysis of favorable reviews.

Attractiveness is broken down into four dimensions: scenic beauty and natural landscapes, culture and history, experiential content, and hospitality. The analysis drew on social media data in 14 languages from Brandwatch, covering June 2025 through May 2026.

By region, the top 50 cities included 22 from Asia, 18 from the Americas, nine from Europe and one from Oceania. By country, the United States led with 16 cities, followed by Japan with eight, and South Korea, Italy and China each with three.

The gap between name recognition and attractiveness was interpreted as an indicator of a city's growth potential. Da Nang (84th in recognition, 24th in attractiveness), Nha Trang (109th, 25th) and Sapporo (69th, 17th) were identified as "latent growth cities" — destinations where visitor satisfaction is high but global awareness remains low.

South Korean cities showed the same pattern. Busan (52nd in recognition, 26th in attractiveness), Jeju (67th, 22nd), Incheon (76th, 27th) and Daegu (107th, 54th) all scored higher on attractiveness than on name recognition — meaning positive evaluations of the actual visit experience outpace their level of global exposure.

Choi Gyu-wan, a professor at Kyung Hee University's College of Hotel and Tourism, said cities with high attractiveness but low name recognition are "hidden gems that can grow rapidly through marketing investment." He added that connecting inbound tourism demand concentrated in Seoul to regional cities with proven appeal is a key strategy for simultaneously expanding foreign visitor numbers and revitalizing local tourism.

Jang Su-cheong, director of Yanolja Research, said that expanding the survey to 261 cities this year and publishing name recognition and attractiveness as separate scores allows for a more precise diagnosis of where each city's strengths and challenges lie — whether in the "power to be known" or the "power to be loved." He added that Seoul's fourth-place finish in the attractiveness index, along with the higher-than-recognition attractiveness scores posted by Busan, Jeju, Incheon and Daegu, signals that South Korea's experiential tourism competitiveness is being validated in the global market.

Yanolja Research plans to publish the index annually to track ongoing changes in global tourism trends.