MasterCard ranks Tel Aviv as fifth most visited city in Middle East and Africa

Tel Aviv ranks as the fifth most visited city in the Middle East and Africa according to the annual MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index, which was released Monday. The report analyzes visitor traffic and travel spending in 132 cities around the world.

It was estimated that 2.5 million tourists will visit the White City this year, dropping approximately $3.5 billion dollars in the process. That would be $700 million more than visitors spent in 2010.

The top origin city for travelers to Tel Aviv was New York, with 377,000 travelers and expected expenditures of $643 million in 2012.

Incidentally, the report also listed New York as the top destination city for Israelis. Some 191,000 of them will travel to the Big Apple this year and spend a whopping $814 million.

For the second year in a row, London was named the world’s top destination city by the index.