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Paris is once again the world’s top tourist destination, France’s regional tourism body has declared, a month after authorities angrily dismissed reports that London had overtaken the French capital as the world’s most popular city. Despite some tough global economic conditions, it said 2013 was an “ exceptional year” for tourism in Paris and the surrounding Ile-de-France region, with foreign visitors at “the highest level in 10 years”. In all, some 32.3 million tourists flocked to the City of Lights, hotel figures suggest. Nearly 15.5 million of these were foreign visitors, representing an 8.2 percent increase from the previous year. The largest number of foreign tourists were Britons – some 2.1 million visitors – followed by Americans, Germans, Italians and Chinese, whose numbers shot up by almost 53 per cent to 881,000. The only black spot was a drop in Frenchclientele, some 7.5 per cent less than in 2017. The figures came weeks after a row over which capital attracted the most tourists - London, or Paris. Figures published in January showed the number of foreign visitors to London surged by almost 20 per cent last summer to a new record of 4.9 million between July and September. “For the first time in history, the city [London] is on course to welcome over 16 million overseas visitors in one year,” the British capital’s tourism agency London &Partners said in a statement. | 
