Comparing Mega Cities: Tourist Statistics and Consumption Habits

We decided to take an in depth look into some of the worlds mega cities, evaluating their cost of living, trends in consumption, tourism facts and figures and general statistics. Whether you’re on the hunt for your next holiday destination or want to know the best place to live it up, we’ve established who the leaders are when it comes to cheap living and holidaying, alcohol consumption, transport and green space.

The General Breakdown

All the cities have an average age of between 30 and 40 years old, with the exception of Istanbul with a median age of just 28.5.

Singapore wins hands down when it comes to green spaces, showing a decent lack thereof in Dubai, Bangkok and Istanbul.

Paris and London beat out the rest when it comes to public transportation with almost 700 Metro stations and 27 lines between them.

Cost of Living

Bangkok is the place to be for beer lovers with the average price just £1.06 while the price in Dubai is a whopping £6. That’s £2.17 more than the average price in London. When it comes to coffee, Bangkok is also the place to be, as well as Istanbul. Once again, Bangkok is the place to be when it comes to finding a cheap restaurant meal, costing more than 10 times this price in London and New York but only around double if you’re eating out at McDonalds.

Aside from food and drink, if you’re a traveller, the cost of getting around by taxi varies greatly between the cities, from just £3.71 for the average fair in Bangkok to £58.50 when travelling around London (it’s a good thing they’re tops when it comes to public transport). If you’re in a taxi heading towards your 3 star hotel, expect to pay almost £90 in London, £100 in Paris and £165 in New York, or just a fraction of this when staying in Bangkok for just £20 a night.

Consumption

We also took a look at consumption trends amongst the cities and found some enlightening statistics. London, Paris and New York for example, are by far the biggest alcohol consumers in the bunch with Londoners and New Yorkers preferring beer and the French greatly preferring wine. London and Paris are also two of the largest meat consumers, only to be dominated by New York. Together with Istanbul, they’re also the smallest consumers of rice, Paris and London totaling less than 20 times the consumption in Bangkok alone.

This unhealthy trend of consuming large amounts of meat and alcohol continues with sugar. Topping the board in sugar consumption is New York, followed by London and Paris.

Tourism

When it comes to tourism and the number of foreign visitors, London is tops, followed by Bangkok, and Bangkok closely by Paris. The number of Facebook fans each city has tells a different story of love and loyalty to these cities, with New York hands down the favourite, with a whopping 13 million fans and counting.