Travel Stats Man

Passport Power Rank 2018

Every year I write a yearly passport power post, and every year it appears the world has changed drastically since the last.

Next year will be no different. Expect this Brexit “remoaner” to be lamenting the massive reduction in the UK passport’s flexibility that currently allows holders access to 175 countries without requiring a visa.

Further from home there have been some other geopolitical issues that have directly affected citizen’s ability to travel. Last summer we saw tensions flare in the Middle East. Towards the end of 2017 Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un engaged in a nuclear war of words.

This post takes a look at how some of these events have affected citizens ability to travel compared to previous years.

Methodology

Each year Henley & Partners publishes a “Visa Restriction Index”, a global ranking of countries according to the travel freedom that their citizens enjoy.

Points are awarded to countries for the number of destinations that offer visa-free travel to their citizens. e-Visas are treated the same as visas on arrival. Where the conditions for obtaining an e-visa are straightforward (fee, return ticket, hotel reservation), a visa-free point was assigned.

The ranking is based on exclusive data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which maintains the world’s largest and most accurate database of travel information, and is enhanced by extensive in-house research.

There are 219 destination countries (territories) in total. The maximum attainable score is 218 (points are not assigned for a national traveling to their own country).

Analysis

Best and worst passports for travel (2018)

Interactive map.

rank 2018	country	UN-region	visa-free-2018
1	Germany	Europe	177
2	Sweden	Europe	176
2	Italy	Europe	176
…	…	…	…
197	Syrian Arab Republic	Africa	28
198	Iraq	Middle East	27
199	Afghanistan	Asia and the Pacific	24

Full list.

For the fifth year in a row, Germany tops the list. German citizens can travel to 177 destinations worldwide without requiring a visa (+1 vs. 2017). The top 3 countries remain unchanged in order from 2017.

At the other end of the ranking Iraq and Afghanistan remain in position 198 and 199, respectively, unchanged from last year with the same number of visa free restrictions (+0 vs. 2017). Pakistan climes one place from 2017 to rank 196th (+1 vs. 2017). with Syria entering the bottom 3 in 197th place having lost one visa free destination (-1 vs. 2017).

Year-on-year changes (2017 vs. 2018)

Download chart.

The world is becoming more accessible to citizens. Between 2017 and 2018 there was an additional 470 visa-free relationships — the biggest increase since 2013 to 2014.

Changes in travel restrictions (2017 vs. 2018)

Interactive chart.

Ukraine has seen much political turmoil in recent years which may attribute to its low rankings in previous years (98th with 82 visa-free destinations in 2017). The country jumps to 79th in 2018 with 114 visa-free destinations (+32 vs. 2017). Citizens of Georgia now enjoy 30 fewer visa requirements to enter other countries in 2018 compared with 2017.

Between 2017 and 2018 only 8 countries saw visa restrictions increase; Syria, North Korea, Lao, Algeria, New Zealand, Mongolia, Antigua and Barbuda, and Qatar (+1 vs. 2017).

Changes in travel restrictions (2013 vs. 2018)

Interactive chart.

When looking back to 2013, citizens of the UAE are the biggest winners for reduced travel restrictions (+62 vs. 2013). 22 countries have seen visa-free travel increase to at least 30 destinations.

In contrast, citizens of 15 countries have seen visa-free travel reduced. Syrian’s have faired worse (-11 vs. 2013). War torn countries like Yemen (-8 vs. 2013), Iraq (-4 vs. 2013), and Iraq (-4 vs. 2013) have also suffered with increased travel restrictions for citizens.

Improvements

Visa restrictions can change for a wide variety of reasons: security, political, social, etc. For additional studies it would be to add such context for each country to try and better understand why visa requirements seem to change so frequently.

tl;dr

The German passport remains the most flexible passport for travel with the fewest visa restrictions imposed upon holders.

Get the data

Data sources + data used in this post.

Internet at 35,000 Feet. How Hard Can it Be?

Ten hours, possibly longer, stuck in a small metal tube with hundreds of other people each wrestling for the tiniest amount of extra space. Flying can be a chore.

Electronics powering music, movies and games, are staples of modern flyers that help to pass the time. Airlines invest millions in onboard entertainment systems to improve passenger experience.

A quick Google search will show you that many passengers, including myself, are now regularly asking if internet services are found onboard flights. The same search will also show you how poor these services can be, assuming they exists at all.

Boeing’s early in-flight Internet service, Connexion, launched in 2001 (since discontinued). 17 year later, how has the market for in-flight internet developed?

Methodology

Each year Skytrax put together a list of the top 100 airlines around the world using a range of variables. The most recent is the 2017 version. Due to the merger of Alaska Airlines (36) and Virgin America (43) I have reduced the list to 99, removing Virgin America.

For each of the 99 airlines I then visited their websites to identify if:

they offer onboard internet
the cost of internet services, if applicable

Not all airlines clearly document wether internet services exist. Many use the umbrella term “WiFi onboard”, however, in many cases this does not include internet access, instead just access to a network with inflight content (similar to that offered on traditional inflight entertainment systems). Those who did not explicitly document internet access were recorded as not to offer it.

Similarly, many airlines are slowly rolling out wifi. In some cases only a few routes served by an airline have in-flight internet, for others the coverage is more widespread. Due to lack of information about internet access by route the actual prevalence of internet onboard is not accounted for.

The cost of in-flight internet, which almost all airlines charge for, is rather complex. There is no unified standard for providing services, some airlines charge based on data usage, others by time, and in some case some by the originating country of the flight. Due to lack of standardisation, I only documented the airlines that offered free access or paid access to in-flight internet.

Finally, I assigned each airline a classification based on the routes they serve, either regional (only short/medium-haul routes) and international (at least one long-haul route), the assumption being that fewer regional flights will offer in-flight internet because of the shorter flight times.

Results

In-flight internet coverage (all airlines)

Download chart.

67 of airlines in the top 99 offer internet on at least one of their routes. The top 20 Skytrax rated airlines all have in-flight internet services available. There is a strong correlation between in-flight internet and an airlines Skytrax rating — those towards the bottom of the rankings tend not to offer internet services to customers.

In-flight internet coverage (international airlines)

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Of the 73 international airlines covered, 53 offered onboard internet.

In-flight internet coverage (regional airlines)

Download chart.

Unsurprisingly, a smaller share of regional airlines offer onboard internet — 14 of the 26 regional airlines offer the service.

Free in-flight internet for business of first class travellers (all airlines)

Download chart.

The cost to retrofit planes with internet capabilities represents a significant investment for an airline. Many in-flight internet providers have business models to make a much money as possible to a very small number of people charging eye-watering prices to access internet services. 11 of the 99 airlines offer free in-flight internet as standard to business or first class customers.

Skytrax 2017 rank	Airline	Type	Free internet in first or business
4	Emirates	International	Yes
10	Garuda Indonesia	International	Yes
12	Turkish Airlines	International	Yes
28	Norwegian	International	Yes
38	Aer Lingus	International	Yes
39	jetBlue Airways	Regional	Yes
67	Philippine Airlines	International	Yes
72	China Eastern	International	Yes
82	Icelandair	International	Yes
84	Gulf Air	International	Yes
98	Air China	International	Yes

Full table.

Free in-flight internet for economy travellers (all airlines)

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Only 6 of the 99 airlines offer some level of free in-flight internet to economy flyers. However, most of these services are limited by time or data volume making anything other than checking emails impossible.

Skytrax 2017 rank	Airline	Type	Free for all
4	Emirates	International	Yes (limited)
10	Garuda Indonesia	International	Yes (limited)
28	Norwegian	International	Yes (unlimited)
67	Philippine Airlines	International	Yes (limited)
98	Air China	International	Yes (limited)
39	jetBlue Airways	Regional	Yes (limited)

Full table.

Norwegian deserve a special mention not just because they offer an unlimited in-flight internet service, where available, but also because of the high number of their routes where this service is available.

tl;dr

67 of the top 99 Skytrax airlines offer in-flight internet. International carriers most likely to offer the service (72%) when compared to their regional counterparts (54%).

Get the Data

Get all the data used in this blog post on Google Sheets.

Getting the Best Piste for Your Money

We’re halfway through the 2017-18 ski season in the Northern Hemisphere and the mountains are calling (in part to help shed some of the extra Christmas kilograms I might have gained).

One thing that’s clear for those looking at taking some time off on the slopes; skiing is a costly sport. However, with lift tickets nearing the €200 mark for a day on the slopes, some resorts (predominately those in the United States) are taking that expense to an entirely new level.

How do you measure value for money at a ski resort?

Snow quality is definitely important. So is nightlife (for us Brits, anyway). Though I decided to take a fully quantitate approach measuring three different metrics; value of lift pass based on skiable area, value of lift pass based on vertical elevation, and finally the piste to lift ratio.

Methodology

Skiresort.info has compiled a regularly updated list of almost 5500 ski resorts around the world. They details key information about each resort, from piste lengths by difficulty to the price of a lift pass.

Using this dataset I extracted data from the top 50 largest resorts by piste length (between 600 and 136 kilometres) for the analysis below.

Results

Lift pass prices

Rank lift pass cost	Resort	Region	Lift day ticket (EUR)
1	Beaver Creek	North America	€157.00
2	Snowmass	North America	€141.00
2	Vail	North America	€141.00
4	Steamboat	North America	€137.00
5	Breckenridge	North America	€136.00
6	Park City	North America	€121.00
7	Winter Park Resort	North America	€116.00
8	Big Sky Resort	North America	€112.00
9	Whistler Blackcomb	North America	€92.00
10	Zermatt/Breuil-Cervinia/Valtournenche – Matterhorn	Europe	€78.00

Full table.

The Beaver Creek lift pass is the most expensive by price in our list at €157. The cheapest day lift pass can be found in Espace Lumière – Pra Loup/Val d’Allos, France for only €39 with 180km of skiable pistes.

9 of the top 10 resorts by lift pass are located in the United States. At the other end of the scale, 8 of the top 10 cheapest resorts for daily lift passes can be found in France.

Lift pass value per piste kilometre

Les 3 Vallées has the largest skiable area in my top 50, 600km for a daily lift price of €52 though you’d be hard pressed to cover a tenth of that in a day.

Download chart.

A lift pass, on average, costs €0.37 per skiable kilometre for the 50 resorts covered (€0.65 in US, €0.25 in Europe)

Cost per km rank	Resort	Region	Lift day ticket (EUR)	Total piste Length (km)	Cost per km
1	Les Portes du Soleil – Morzine/Avoriaz/Les Gets/Châtel/Morgins/Champéry	Europe	€52.00	580	€0.09
2	Les 3 Vallées – Val Thorens/Les Menuires/Méribel/Courchevel	Europe	€61.00	600	€0.10
3	Via Lattea – Sestriere/Sauze d’Oulx/San Sicario/Claviere/Montgenèvre	Europe	€48.00	400	€0.12
…	…	…	…	…	…
48	Steamboat	North America	€137.00	165	€0.83
49	Breckenridge	North America	€136.00	153	€0.89
50	Beaver Creek	North America	€157.00	150	€1.05

View full table.

The best value lift pass by available skiable area is Les Portes du Soleil, France where a day pass costs €52 and covers 580km (€0.09 per kilometre). In contrast, in Beaver Creek, North America a day pass will cost €157.00 covering only 150km of pistes (€1.05 per kilometre). Of course I’m sure there will be many off-piste hikers willing to put in some legwork to make up for this.

Lift pass value per vertical metre

The resorts in the Europe, on average, have more vertical descent than those in the US; 1553 metres versus 1144 metres (though the US resorts are located at a higher altitude; 3186 metres versus 2751 metres).

Download chart.

To go from top to bottom of all 50 resorts on the list you’ll pay and average cost €0.05 per metre (lift pass / elevation change).

Rank elevation change cost per m	Resort	Region	Lift day ticket (EUR)	Elevation change (m)	Lift cost per vertical m
1	Vail	North America	€141.00	976	€0.14
1	Breckenridge	North America	€136.00	988	€0.14
50	Alpe d’Huez	Europe	€52.50	2205	€0.02
50	Les 2 Alpes	Europe	€50.00	2243	€0.02

Full table.

Using this metric, the cheapest resorts per vertical metre are Les 2 Alpes and Alpe d’Huez in France at €0.02 per metre.

The most expensive? All in North America. Breckenridge and Vail in the US have the highest cost per metre at €0.14

Ski area covered by each lift

Waiting for a lift is a real pain. In some resorts I’ve heard people standing in line for over an hour (I’m looking at you Chamonix). This led me to wonder; which resorts the best lift to piste ratio?

In Les Portes du Soleil, France, there are a whopping 170 lifts to cover the skiable area of 580km (each lift covers 3.41km). Lake Louise has just 7 lifts covering 139km of pistes (each lift covers 19.86km).

Download chart.

On average, one lift exists for every 5.8 km in the 50 resorts covered, though there are outliers.

Rank ski area km per lift	Resort	Region	Total piste Length (km)	Ski lifts	Ski area km per lift
1	Gröden (Val Gardena)	Europe	175	79	2.22
2	Espace Diamant – Les Saisies/Notre-Dame-de-Bellecombe/Praz sur Arly/Flumet/Crest-Voland	Europe	192	79	2.43
3	La Plagne (Paradiski)	Europe	225	91	2.47
…	…	…	…	…	…
48	Snowmass	North America	237	17	13.94
49	Fernie	North America	142	9	15.78
50	Lake Louise	North America	139	7	19.86

View full table.

Gröden (Val Gardena), Italy, has almost 1 lift for every 2km of pistes. Lake Louise, ranked in last place for lift coverage, has just 1 lift for every 20km of pistes. Like value, North American resorts are, mostly, the worst for lift coverage.

tl;dr

Based on marked pistes, European resorts offer significantly better value for money (€0.25 p/km) than their counterparts in the United States (€0.65 p/km).

Get the Data

Get all the data used in this blog post on Google Sheets.

Good News! The World Is Becoming More Peaceful

Last year we covered the most dangerous cities by homicide rates — the stats were particularly scary.

Since writing that post I’ve stumbled across the Global Peace Index created by the aptly named, Institute for Economics and Peace.

Homicide rate obviously has a clear relationship to peace, and is one of the 22 factors considered for each country listed in the Global Peace Index.

While we probably all have a favourite peaceful destination to escape the stress of everyday life; where do these countries fall on the Global Peace Index?

Methodology

The Global Peace Index (GPI) gauges global peace using three broad themes: the level of safety and security in society, the extent of domestic and international conflict and the degree of militarisation. Factors are both internal such as levels of violence and crime within the country and external such as military expenditure and wars. The GPI uses 22 different factors to rank individual countries based on these themes.

Countries covered by the GPI must either have a population of more than 1 million or a land area greater than 20,000 square kilometers.

The first GPI was released in 2008 (129 countries considered) with the latest data compiled covering 2017 (163 countries considered).

Results

The world was more peaceful in 2017 than 2016

Download chart.

Perhaps surprisingly we live in a more peaceful world than 2016. The overall GPI scores fell by 0.22% between 2016 and 2017. 90 countries are now more peaceful, compared to 72 that are less, and one, Czech Republic, that had no change in GPI score. On average, the world has become 6% less peaceful since 2008.

But the world is less peaceful than in 2008

Download chart.

98 countries became less peaceful between 2008 and 2017 while 31 became more peaceful (hurrah!). The countries with the biggest changes in GPI were Chad which has become 19% more peaceful, on-the-other-hand, Syria has become 47% more dangerous.

And the most peaceful countries in 2017 were…

Download chart.

Iceland, is by far the most peaceful country in the world according to the GPI. This year it had the lowest index score of 1.111. All of the top 10 countries have GPI values between 1.1 and 1.5 (the lower the score, the higher the level of peace). Compare that to the 10 least peaceful countries where scores range from 3.0 to 4.0.

The most peaceful countries GPI scores have remained stable

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Generally scores of the 2017 top ten most peaceful countries have remained fairly static fluctuating plus and minus 0.1 points over the time period (indicating stability within these countries).

Some countries have shot up the GPI rankings

Download chart.

Examining countries by GPI ranking tells a different story. Whilst Iceland and New Zealand have been incredibly consistent in places one and two respectively, other countries have not been so predictable.

Take Portugal. In recent years the countries GPI has gone from 1.385 in 2008 to 1.258 in 2017 — a 10.1% increase in peacefulness. This has catapulted the country up the GPI rankings from 14/137 position in 2008 to 3/162 in the latest 2017 rankings. Much of this can be attributed to financial reforms put in place by the country, and significant strides in lowering violence and terror with greater political stability and economic promise.

Notably, Switzerland has typically ranked in the top 10 since 2008. However, in 2009, 2010 and 2011 the country ranked 11/143, 18/158 and 16/153 by GPI rank respectively. Much of this can be attributed to the factors that go into the GPI rankings that relate to military and arms trading. Countries are negatively scored on these factors. Given Switzerland has compulsory military service and exports more weapons, relative to its size, than many other countries the GPI scores become slightly when compared to the countries otherwise socially peaceful nature.

And the least peaceful countries in 2017 were…

Download chart.

Sadly, it is clear to see just how bad the situation is in war torn Syria. Put alongside Iraq (3.556 GPI score) and Afghanistan (3.567), with a GPI score of 3.814 it is clear the country could in no way be considered peaceful.

Ukraine, the only European country ranked 154/163 in the 2017 GPI is closely followed by Russia placed 151/163. There have been small scale conflicts on the borders between the two countries likely contributing heavily to their high GPI scores.

You might be shocked, or not, to learn that the United States ranks 114/163 in 2017 on the GPI. Much of this can again be answered by the factors that go into making up the index such as military spending of which the United States spends more than any other country.

Scores show these countries are getting less peaceful

Download chart.

The 2017 list of least peaceful cities have seen their GPI scores worsen significantly since 2008. Half of the top 5 have become less peaceful by over one index point — representing an increase of more than 50% in each case.

Download chart.

Most of the rankings show a slight uptick year-on-year, however this can be attributed to more countries being considered by the GPI (137 in 2008, 163 in 200(). You can see two very clear things on this graph; Syria and Ukraine’s falls down the rankings.

In 2011, what became known as the Arab Spring revolts toppled Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. In the months following many of Syria’s population tried to similarly overthrow the countries president, Bashar al-Assad , resulting in a civil war that is still being waged, began in Syria with rebels. This has resulted in untold tragedy and is the reason Syria slipped from a peaceful(ish) 65/163 in 2007 to the least peaceful country on earth in 2017.

Similarly, in 2014 the Ukrainian revolution began when a series of riots erupted in the countries capital, Kiev. Since then much of the countries eastern border with Russia has been annexed with tensions running high with neighbouring Russia. In turn, the revolution and the ensuing instability has led to Ukraine being ranked 80/137 in 2008 to 154/163 in 2017 on the GPI.

Improvements

The GPI ranking has been criticised by some. Like any index, the GPI should be considered on the factors that go into creating it. For instance, take Switzerland discussed in this post, which has its ranking heavily skewed by military spending and arms trades despite being a very peaceful nation when accounting for all other factors. As such it would be good to compare the raw data points for each of the contributing factors (e.g. total military spending, homicide rate, etc) in any future analysis.

tl;dr

Iceland is currently the most peaceful city in the world according to the Global Peace Index compiled by the Institute for Economics and Peace.

Get the Data

Get all the data used in this blog post on Google Sheets.

$3000 Per Night For A Hotel Room!?!?

With the year coming to an end you might be thinking about booking getaways for 2018. Perhaps you’re jetting off after Christmas to escape the cold or for some relaxation after the holiday period.

In many cases, price is key consideration when choosing a hotel. For me, the price and location are the biggest factors to consider when travelling on business — I’m not too bothered about luxury. However, on vacation I’m willing to pay slightly more for a outdoor pool that I can laze around.

In major cities, hotels can be eye-wateringly expensive, even in the off-seasons. Which left me wondering; where are the most expensive city hotels?

Methodology

Mastercard ranked 132 cities around the world according to the number of international overnight visitors they welcomed in 2016 in their Global Destinations Cities Index 2016. Overnight visitors are defined as those arriving from outside of the country and who stay at least one night in the destination city. The top 10 cities ranked by number of overnight visitors is as follows:

Rank overnight visitors	City	Overnight visitors 2016
1	Bangkok, Thailand	21,470,000
2	London, UK	19,880,000
3	Paris, France	18,030,000
4	Dubai, UAE	15,270,000
5	New York City, USA	12,750,000
6	Singapore, Singapore	12,110,000
7	Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia	12,020,000
8	Istanbul, Turkey	11,950,000
9	Tokyo, Japan	11,700,000
10	Seoul, South Korea	10,200,000

Download table.

Using this list of 10 cities, I turned to hotels.com to search for the 10 most expensive hotels in each of these cities for the dates: Saturday 13th January – Saturday 20th January 2018. I selected these dates as they are generally considered to be off-season, therefore demand should be relatively low for most of the 10 destinations (thus, lower prices). Prices are reported per night based on one standard room for two people (no suites, etc.).

Results

Most expensive hotels

Download chart.

The top 7 most expensive hotels in these 10 cities all cost more than $1000 per night during the off-season. My assumption is most of these hotels would cost well above $1000 in the peak-seasons. As an example, take during the Spring school holiday period in the UK. The most expensive hotel in January, the Jumeirah Zabeel Saray Royal Residences costing $2,777 per night, would cost at the time of writing $3,934 per night for a stay between Saturday 17th February – Saturday 24 February 2018 — over $1000 more!

Most expensive hotels by city

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The Jumeirah Zabeel Saray Royal Residences at $2,777 per night places Dubai as the number one city by most expensive hotel. Paris’s Nolinski hotel at $1,630 per night and Tokyo’s TRUNK hotel at $1,493 per night place these cities second and third on the list of most expensive hotels by city respectively.

In contrast, in Kuala Lumpur, the most expensive hotel in the city, the Grand Service Suite at Times Square, costs $406 per night, significantly less than the top 3 cities previously covered.

Average cost of top 10 hotels by city

Download chart.

There is a wide spread in cost to staying in the best hotels a city has to offer. In Dubai, the average cost to stay at one of the top 10 most expensive will cost you $917.40 per night.

If you’re considering Asia as your next luxury destinations the prices are much more favourable for high-end hotels. The average hotel in Seoul, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur costs less than an average of $325 per night — about the average price for a mid-range hotel in many of the other cities considered, Paris or London for example.

Improvements

As discussed, the time of year greatly affects demand and therefore prices charged for rooms by hotels. Having access to a dataset showing historic price changes over time for each hotel would make for a very interesting analysis. As would adding more hotels, not just the top 10 most expensive in each city.

tl;dr

Dubai has some of the most expensive high-end hotels. Of the top 10 visited cities, Dubai’s Jumeirah Zabeel Saray Royal Residences costing $2,777 per night in the off-season is the most expensive hotel I could find.

Footnotes

Data sources + data used in this post.

The Only Thing Tougher Than Climbing Everest is Raising The Funds to Get There

Over the summer I climbed a few mountains; Mount Snowden in Wales, UK (1,085m) and Mount Diablo in California, USA (1,173 m). These are the 1273rd and 1268th highest peaks in the world respectively.

While I’m happy with these expeditions they do not compare with even the top 100 peaks, all of which reach 7,000m above sea-level.

On my summits the biggest cost was the car park (£10 per day at Snowden, if I recall correctly). However, these sums are insignificant to climbing some of the world’s highest mountains where costs can easily run into tens-of-thousands-of-dollars.

Which left me wondering; how much does it cost to summit the highest mountains?

Methodology

To get a wide spread of mountains, to account for geographic cost differences, I decided to compare costs of climbing the Seven Summits. For those unfamiliar, the Seven Summits are the highest mountains of each of the seven continents. Summiting all of them is regarded as a mountaineering challenge. The seven mountains that make up the series are:

Overall rank	Mountain	Meters	Feet	Continent
1	Mount Everest	8,848	29,029	Asia
235	Mount Kilimanjaro	5,895	19,341	Africa
134	Aconcagua	6,962	22,841	South America
247	Mount Elbrus	5,642	18,510	Europe
213	Denali	6,168	20,236	North America
303	Puncak Jaya	4,884	16,024	Oceania
301	Vinson Massif	4,892	16,050	Antartica

You’ll see the only mountain in the top 100 highest peaks worldwide in this list is Everest. Over half of the top 100 peaks are found in the Himalayas, the mountain range where Everest is located.

Climbing costs can vary significantly person-to-person. One of the largest costs climbers incur are climbing guide fees. Generally, the more experienced guides are, the more climbers will pay for their services. I used the cheapest guide prices taken from two American guide services advertising climbs for the Seven Summits in 2017.

Climb times offered by guides also vary too. For time, I used an average figure calculated using the high and low climb estimates provided by the two guide services.

Results

Guide fees to climb the Seven Summits

Download chart.

Guide fees rank	Mountain	Guide fees (USD)	Meters
7	Aconcagua	$4,700.00	6,962
6	Mount Kilimanjaro	$5,000.00	5,895
5	Mount Elbrus	$5,000.00	5,642
4	Denali	$8,500.00	6,168
3	Puncak Jaya	$27,000.00	4,884
2	Vinson Massif	$42,000.00	4,892
1	Mount Everest	$65,000.00	8,848

Download table.

Some of these climbs are seen by elite climbers as hikes. For example, trips to Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa, are advertised to the masses as a safe and relatively easy climb. The low climbing fees, starting from $5000, make it even more attractive for those entering the world of mountaineering. Compare that to Everest, where prices start from $65,000, or the price of premium car!

To climb all Seven Summits at the prices listed above would cost you $157,200 in guide fees alone.

Cost per day to climb the Seven Summits

Download chart.

Cost per day rank	Mountain	Cost per day USD	Days ave	Meters
7	Aconcagua	$213.64	22	6,962
6	Mount Elbrus	$357.14	14	5,642
5	Denali	$386.36	22	6168
4	Mount Kilimanjaro	$434.78	11.5	5,895
3	Mount Everest	$896.55	72.5	8,848
2	Puncak Jaya	$1,687.50	16	4,884
1	Vinson Massif	$2,153.85	19.5	4,892

Download table.

While an Everest ascent and descent of 8,848 meters takes on average 72.5 days to complete, the cost to climb is significantly cheaper at $896.55 per day than both Puncak Jaya and Vinson Massif costing $1,687.50 per day and $2,153.85 per day respectively.

In contrast, Aconcagua is the cheapest to climb at $213.64 per day, over 90% cheaper than the most expensive Vinson Massif.

Cost per meter to climb the Seven Summits

Download chart.

Rank cost per meter	Mountain	Cost per meter USD	Meters
7	Aconcagua	$0.68	6,962
6	Mount Kilimanjaro	$0.85	5,895
5	Mount Elbrus	$0.89	5,642
4	Denali	$1.38	6168
3	Puncak Jaya	$5.53	4884
2	Mount Everest	$7.35	8848
1	Vinson Massif	$8.59	4892

Download table.

Again, and surprising to me, Everest is not the most expensive mountain to summit. When looking at cost per meter Everest will set you back $7.35 per vertical meter, however, Vinson Massif, almost half the height of Everest will cost $8.59 per vertical meter! Whilst Everest is remote, Vinson Massif in Antartica is significantly harder to get to and has a less developed climbing industry resulting in the higher costs.

Similarly, Puncak Jaya, the smallest summit by height of all seven (4,884m) is the third most expensive costing $5.53 per vertical meter.

Improvements

This post only considered costs listed by two climbing guide companies. There are large variations in actual costs charged by guide companies. Take Mount Everest for example, where some report guide costs between $30,000 – $85,000. It would be interesting to compare summit success per company by costs charged to help understand if more money buys success (or better guides).

tl;dr

As expected, guide fees to climb Everest are most expensive of all seven summits costing around $65,000 with expeditions taking on average 72.5 days. However, Vinson Massif, the second smallest mountain in the Seven Summit series at 4,892m has the second highest guide fees, $42,000, which means it is the most expensive when analysing the expeditions based on cost per day ($2,153.85) and cost per meter ($8.59).

Footnotes

Data sources + data used in this post.

London Has Enough Attractions to Keep You Busy For 16 Years

Have you ever visited a city and thought; 3/5/7 days is not enough?

Leaflets line the lobbies of hotels the world over advertising the wide range of activities you can sign up for, from elephant trekking in South East Asia to bungee jumps in New Zealand.

Often many of us will pick new destinations for holidays based on the activities on offer.

Which cities will keep you most busy based on your interests?

Methodology

I used Euromonitor’s Top 100 City Destinations Ranking (tourist arrivals) to identify the top 100 cities for tourism in 2015.

Using this list of 100, I then turned to Tripadvisor to identify number of activity options in each city. Tripadvisor splits activities into the following 20 categories:

Sights and landmarks
Transportation
Nature and parks
Shopping
Water and amusement parks
Tours
Zoos and aquariums
Outdoor activities
Museums
Food and drink
Fun and games
Nightlife
Boat tours and water sports
Casinos and gambling
Concerts and shows
Spas and wellness
Classes and workshops
Traveller resources
Events
Day trips

Results

Top cities (all activities)

Interactive map.

Rank total activities	City & Country	Activities Total
1	London, UK	5809
2	Tokyo, Japan	5021
3	Moscow, Russia	4375
4	New York City, US	4342
5	Rome, Italy	4159
6	Paris, France	3732
7	Prague, Czech Republic	3239
8	Barcelona, Spain	3203
9	St Petersburg, Russia	3158
10	Istanbul, Turkey	2990

Full list.

London has the most activities for visitors 5809, nightlife activities account for 1280 of the total. That is enough to keep you busy for almost 16 years (5809 / 365).

Europe is one of the best regions to visit for spread of activities, 8 of the top 10 cities in the top 10 are all European.

Top cities (nightlife)

Interactive map.

Rank nightlife activities	City & Country	Nightlife total
1	London, UK	1280
2	Madrid, Spain	913
3	New York City, US	857
4	Barcelona, Spain	776
5	Prague, Czech Republic	648
6	Berlin, Germany	600
7	Rome, Italy	565
8	Istanbul, Turkey	440
9	Paris, France	429
10	Milan, Italy	376

Full list.

9 of the top 10 cities for nightlife attractions are all European with London leading the way with 1280 options — over 300 more than 2nd placed Madrid.

Top cities (shopping)

Interactive map.

Rank shopping activities	City & Country	Shopping
1	New York City, US	796
2	London, UK	718
3	Paris, France	646
4	Tokyo, Japan	645
5	Istanbul, Turkey	530
6	Shanghai, China	506
7	Bangkok, Thailand	457
8	Rome, Italy	427
9	Prague, Czech Republic	386
10	Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China	386

Full list.

Unsurprisingly the “fashion capitals”, New York (769), London (718), Paris (646) have the most shopping options available to visitors.

Top cities (museums)

Interactive map.

Rank museums attractions	City & Country	Museums
1	Moscow, Russia	594
2	St Petersburg, Russia	430
3	Tokyo, Japan	390
4	Seoul, South Korea	330
5	Prague, Czech Republic	317
6	London, UK	314
7	Beijing, China	284
8	Istanbul, Turkey	283
9	New York City, US	266
10	Shanghai, China	261

Full list.

Russia, a country with a very rich history has a large number of museums compared to other major cities. Moscow (594) and St Petersburg (430) are placed 1st and 2nd for count of museums.

2 cities in Euromonitor’s Top 100 list have no museums: Halong (Vietnam) and Palau Pinang (Malaysia).

Top cities (food & drink)

Interactive map.

Food & drink rank	City & Country	Food & Drink
1	Rome, Italy	211
2	Hanoi, Vietnam	188
3	London, UK	170
4	Barcelona, Spain	166
5	Paris, France	159
6	Florence, Italy	134
7	Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam	112
8	Tokyo, Japan	106
9	Prague, Czech Republic	106
10	Madrid, Spain	102

Full list.

Rome tops the list for Food & Drink options. Parisians will be very disappointed to see themselves in 4th place, behind London in 3rd.

Top cities (nature & parks)

Interactive map.

Nature & park ranks	City & Country	Nature & Parks
1	Tokyo, Japan	378
2	Beijing, China	273
3	Moscow, Russia	187
4	London, UK	179
5	Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China	141
6	St Petersburg, Russia	133
7	Taipei, Taiwan	126
8	Shanghai, China	125
9	New York City, US	109
10	Sydney, Australia	106

Full list.

The greenest city in the world is highly debatable (how do you measure “green”?). Tripadvisor’s count does not account for area of green space, rather the number of distinct green spaces and parks. Tokyo, a city with a very dense population, does not have many very large parks but seemingly lots of very small green spaces.

Top cities (landmarks)

Interactive map.

Rank sights activities	City & Country	Sights & Landmarks
1	Tokyo, Japan	1851
2	Moscow, Russia	1300
3	St Petersburg, Russia	1030
4	Rome, Italy	894
5	Kyoto, Japan	799
6	Beijing, China	757
7	London, UK	693
8	Osaka, Japan	614
9	Paris, France	505
10	Milan, Italy	451

Full list.

I was not going to include this category as Sights and Landmarks is a very broad categorisation. However I decided to include with an explanation. Older cities will likely have lots of historic landmarks, but this category has no distinction. Likewise, a “sight” can be very subjective. As such, I am not sure there is too much we can draw from this category.

Improvements

Tripadvisor’s count of activities offers a general overview of the most popular activities within a city. If you’re like me, you’ll browse Tripadvisor’s “Top 10” activities before visiting a new city. However, the activities listed by Tripadvisor is not exhaustive. Many activities, especially those of a very specialist nature, are likely to be excluded. If I could identify a better way to classify and count activities in each city the accuracy of the results could be improved.

tl;dr

London has the most activities for visitors 5809, nightlife activities account for 1280 of the total.

Get the Data

Get all the data used in this blog post on Google Sheets.

Tuvalu Welcomes Just 1000 Tourists Per Year. France, 83 Million

Modern day travel has become incredibly easy. Even comparing it to 15 years ago; more routes are available than ever before, travel times have reduced, and costs have typically dropped significantly.

The turn-of-phrase ‘small world‘ is now a common one (although its use may be in decline). In 2014, there were 1.133 billion international tourist arrivals worldwide, with a growth of 4.3% as compared to 1.087 billion in 2013.

Yet parts of the world are still inaccessible through your budget carrier — and some still unexplored. But where are they?

Methodology

Every year the UN World Tourism Organisation publishes a report titled “Tourism Highlights“. For this post I used the 2015 version (data reported is for 2013). The report contains tourism statistics for 217 countries, including inbound tourist arrivals and receipts. Using this data I was able to identify the countries that report the fewest tourists.

Analysis

UNWTO inbound tourists 2013

Full map.

Did you know? The 3 countries that received the most tourists in 2013 were: 1. France (83.6 mil arrivals), 2. United States (69.9), and 3. Spain (60.6).

Full ranking.

UNWTO least touristed regions

Download chart.

If you want to steer clear of tourist traps and other travellers your best bet would be a holiday somewhere in Africa… or Bangladesh.

UNWTO least touristed countries

Download chart.

-Rank (tourists)	Destination	Inbound Tourists 2013
19	Rep. Moldova	96000
18	Dominica	86000
17	Sierra Leone	81000
16	Timor-Leste	79000
15	St. Vincent & Gren.	72000
14	San Marino	71000
13	Anguilla	69000
12	Djibouti	63000
11	Liechtenstein	60000
10	Guinea	56000
9	Tonga	51000
8	Micronesia FSM	42000
7	Solomon Is	24000
6	American Samoa	20000
5	Montserrat	7000
4	Niue	7000
3	Kiribati	6000
2	Marshall Is	5000
1	Tuvalu	1000

Full list.

These 19 countries were all reported to receive less than 100k inbound tourists in 2013.

There were 91 countries in 2013 that received less than 1 million inbound tourists.

Did you know? The 3 countries that received the fewest tourists in 2013 were: 191. Kiribati (6000 arrivals), 192. Marshall Islands (5000), 193. Tuvalu (1000).

Improvements

This post was inspired by Gunnar Garfors, who in 2015 compiled a list of the least touristed countries from a wide array of sources beyond only the UNWTO.

His list of 25 countries is very similar, with some notable differences in the bottom 3 countries: 23. Tuvalu (1200 inbound tourists), 24. Somalia (400), 25. Nauru (160).

tl;dr

According to the UNWTO the 3 countries that have the lowest number of inbound tourists in 2014 were: 191. Kiribiti (6000 inbound tourists), 192. Marshall Islands (5000), 193. Tuvalu (1000)

Footnotes

Data sources + data used in this post.

The Worlds Shortest Commercial Flight. 2 Minutes to Fly 3 Kilometres

If it’s Tuesday, it must be Wednesday.

The Time Zone system counts 12 hours in either direction from Greenwich and meets up more or less in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. This imaginary boundary is called the International Date Line and anywhere it meets, an extremely strange thing happens. Time jumps ahead 24 hours – an entire day. If you fly from China to the West Coast of the US, for example, the jump can be particularly tough on the body.

Flying long-haul can be very tough on your body. Timezone changes mixed with hours of sitting uncomfortably (unless you’re lucky to fly business class or above) is not something many look forward too.

Timezone changes can work both ways. When Concorde was in operation (1976 – 2003) flying from London to New York you could arrive, in terms of local time, before you left. A New York to London flight took only 3 hours 20 minutes (the fastest journey was 2 hours 52 minutes and 59 seconds!).

How bad does it get? What are the longest plane journeys?

Methodology

I collected data from Wikipedia about commercial aircraft ranges and both operational and retired commercial routes for comparison.

Analysis

Aircraft ranges

Download chart.

The biggest limitation to flying distance is aircraft — it takes a lot of fuel to keep a plane in the air.

The Boeing 777-200LR (the LR stands for Long Range) is the aircraft with the largest potential range, 17,395km (the circumference of the earth is 40,008km).

Did you know? The aircraft with the longest ranges are: 1. Boeing 777-200LR (17,395km), 2. Airbus A340-500 (16,670km), 3. Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner (15,750km).

Longest distance routes (by aircraft type)

Download chart.

The longest route (distance) operated by a Turboprop aircraft is the Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 (1726 km / PD175).

All of the 10 longest flights are operated by jet powered aircraft. The longest route (distance) operated by a Jetliner aircraft is the Boeing 777-200LR (14,524km / QR 921). This is just under 3000km short of the aircrafts max operating range (17,395km).

Notably, flight SV 41 operated by an Boeing 777-300ER between Jeddah and LA takes about 16 hours 55 mins to cover 13,400km. However, flight UA 179 (San Francisco to Singapore) covers a longer distance (13,600km) but is 35 minutes shorter in duration (16 hours 20 mins) operated on a Boeing 787-9.

Longest distance (by active routes)

Download chart.

Rank (dist.)	From – To	Flight number	Distance km	Scheduled duration	Aircraft type
1	Auckland-Doha	QR 921	14524	17:35:00	Boeing 777-200LR
2	Auckland-Dubai	EK 449	14203	17:15:00	Airbus A380-799
3	Dallas/Fort Worth-Sydney	QF 8	13804	16:55:00	Airbus A380-800
4	San Francisco-Singapore	SQ 31	13593	16:55:00	Airbus A350
5	San Francisco-Singapore	UA 179	13593	16:20:00	Boeing 787-9
6	Johannesburg-Atlanta	DL 201	13582	16:40:00	Boeing 777-200LR
7	Abu Dhabi-Los Angeles	EY 171	13502	16:30:00	Boeing 777-200LR
8	Dubai-International-Los Angeles	EK 215	13420	16:35:00	Airbus A380-800
9	Jeddah-Los Angeles	SV 41	13409	16:30:00	Boeing 777-300ER
10	Doha-Los Angeles	QR 739	13367	16:25:00	Boeing 777-200LR
11	Dubai-Houston	EK 211	13144	16:20:00	Airbus A380-800

Full ranking.

Did you know? The longest routes (distance) currently in operation are: 1. QR921 Auckland – Doha (14,524km / 17h35m / 777-200LR), 2. EK449 Auckland – Dubai (14,203km / 17h15m / A380-800), 3. QF8 Dallas – Sydney (13,804km / 16h55m / A380-800)

Longest distance (by discontinued routes)

Download chart.

The longest journey (distance) ever operated was SQ21 Newark – Singapore (15,345km) and took 18h50m (ouch!). This route was flown by a A340-500 (max range 16,670km).

SQ37, LA – Singapore (14,114km) took 18h05m flown on an A340-500. This journey is almost an hour longer than QR921 Auckland – Doha (14,524km / 17h35m) currently flown on a 777-200LR. Both routes are about equal in distance and the direction of travel is the same. The time difference can be attributed to cruising speeds of each aircraft: 777-200LR = 1037km/h vs. A340-500 = 945 km/h — about 100 km/h slower.

Shortest distance (by active routes)

Download chart.

Rank (dist.)	From To	Flight Number	Distance (km)	Scheduled duration (min)	Aircraft Type
10	Kos-Kalymnos	A3 7036/7037	23	20	De Havilland Canada Dash 8
9	Karpathos-Kasos Island	OA 34	22	5	De Havilland Canada Dash 8
8	Cayman Brac-Little Cayman	KX 4421	22	10	DHC-6 Twin Otter Series 300
7	Papeete (Fa’a’ā)-Moorea	VT 201	18	15	ATR 72
6	Saipan-Tinian	FP 101	17.4	10	Piper PA-31 Navajo
5	Connemara-Inishmaan	RE-XXX	16.8	6	Britten-Norman Islander
4	Hoʻolehua (Molokai Airport)-Kalaupapa	LW 270/280/290	14.2	10	Cessna 208B Grand Caravan
3	Minami-Daito-Kita-Daito	RAC835/RAC836	12	15	Bombardier Dash 8
2	Caye Chapel-Caye Caulker	MW 2100	3.8	2	Cessna 208 Caravan
1	Westray-Papa Westray	LOG312/LOG313	2.73	2	Britten-Norman Islander

Full ranking.

Anyone who has spent 17 hours on a plane knows how tough it can be on the body. That said, flights where you spend longer in the airport then in the air can be frustrating.

The shortest route flown by time and distance is between Westray and Papa Westray in Scotland. The distance is 2.73km and the flight takes just 2 minutes. It’s a hotly contested route for airlines. In 2013 a one-way ticket was priced at £21 (a brief search did not uncover recent prices).

Interestingly, the 9th shortest flight by distance, Karpathos-Kasos Island (22km), takes just 5 minutes on the De Havilland Canada Dash 8.

Did you know? The shortest routes (distance) currently flown are: 3. Minami-Daito – Kita-Daito (12km / 15m), 2. Caye Chape – Caye Caulker (3.8km / 2m), 1. Westray and Papa Westray (2.73km / 2m).

Did you know? The shortest routes (time) currently flown are: 3. Karapathos – Kasos Island (22km / 5m), 2. Caye Chape – Caye Caulker (3.8 / 2m), 1. Westray and Papa Westray (2.73km / 2m).

Improvements

I would like to compare how the flight duration differences changed based on average cruising speed of different aircraft.

tl;dr

On 5 February 2017, Qatar Airways started nonstop flights between Doha and Auckland, making this flight the longest in the world. The flight covers 14,524 kilometres and is operated by Boeing 777-200LR aircraft.

Footnotes

Data sources + data used in this post.

Sorry, No Hotels Available. The Cities With The Fewest Hotels

When a big event rolls into town, many cities can struggle to cope with the demand for hotel rooms.

Airbnb and other holiday rental sites have alleviated such problems, although in many cases prices can be significantly higher than normal for guests.

Which cities have the fewest number of hotels for visiting tourists?

Methodology

I used Euromonitor’s Top 100 City Destinations Ranking (tourist arrivals) to identify the top 100 cities for tourism in 2015.

Using this list of 100, I then turned to Tripadvisor to identify number of accommodation options in each city. Tripadvisor splits accommodation options into 4 types:

Hotels
B&B and Inns
Speciality Lodging
Holiday Rentals

Note, the “holiday rental” category does not include rentals from popular sites like Airbnb and other equivalents which will result in a lower number reported for this category than is correct.

Results

Top 10 Destinations by Tourist Arrivals (2015)

Rank 2015 Arrivals	City	Country	2014 Arrivals (‘000)	2015 Arrivals (‘000)	Y-o-YGrowth 2014-2015
1	Hong Kong	Hong Kong, China	27,770.50	26,686.00	3.91%
2	Bangkok	Thailand	17,031.70	18,734.90	-10.00%
3	London	UK	17,404.00	18,580.00	-6.76%
4	Singapore	Singapore	16,795.60	16,869.40	-0.44%
5	Paris	France	15,058.10	15,023.00	0.23%
6	Macau	Macau	14,566.00	14,308.50	1.77%
7	Dubai	United Arab Emirates	13,200.00	14,200.00	-7.58%
8	Istanbul	Turkey	11,843.00	12,414.60	-4.83%
9	New York City	US	12,230.00	12,300.00	-0.57%
10	Kuala Lumpur	Malaysia	11,629.60	12,153.00	-4.50%

Full table.

Hong Kong welcomed 28 million tourists in 2015, 10 million more than the second touristed city, Bangkok (17 million). It also saw the fastest growth (4%) for arrivals in 2015 (top 10 only). Jerba, Tunisia saw the biggest increase in tourists (top 100) (17%), whilst Osaka, Japan saw the biggest decrease in tourist arrivals (top 100) (-52%).

Top 100 Destinations by Tourist Arrivals (2015)

Download chart.

To put things into perspective, while all cities in the top 10 received more than 10 million arrivals the majority of cities received less than 5 million (67).

Interactive map.

The top destinations in the top 100 fall primarily in Europe and Asia.

Top 10 cities by number of accommodation options

Rank Accommodation count	City	Country	count Hotels	count B&B	count Specialty Lodging	count Holiday Rentals	total accommodation
1	Orlando	US	335	2	17	15,796	16150
2	Rome	Italy	1291	3763	1097	8549	14700
3	London	UK	1088	574	837	7,654	10153
4	Beijing	China	6449	1292	925	44	8710
5	Paris	France	1801	129	157	6,265	8352
6	Shanghai	China	4999	728	292	62	6081
7	Mugla	Turkey	1238	912	954	2,792	5896
8	Mexico City	Mexico	1691	1796	1299	964	5750
9	Phuket	Thailand	754	997	849	3064	5664
10	Barcelona	Spain	521	326	764	3,984	5595

Full list.

Orlando does not have the most hotels (Beijing does, 6449) but it does have the highest number of accommodation options, 16150 in total (most of which are classified as holiday rentals by TripAdvisor).

The top 4 cities with the most hotels are all in China: Beijing (6449), Shanghai (4999), Guangzhou (3394), Shenzhen (2754).

World largest hotels by rooms

Rank	Name	Country	City	Rooms/suites
1	First World Hotel	Malaysia	Genting Highlands	7,351
2	The Venetian and The Palazzo	United States	Las Vegas	7,117
3	MGM Grand Las Vegas + The Signature	United States	Las Vegas	6,852
4	CityCenter	United States	Las Vegas	6,790
5	Sands Cotai Central	Macau	Macau	6,000
6	Izmailovo Hotel	Russia	Moscow	5,000
7	Wynn Las Vegas + Encore Las Vegas	United States	Las Vegas	4,750
8	Mandalay Bay + Delano + Four Seasons	United States	Las Vegas	4,426
9	Luxor Las Vegas	United States	Las Vegas	4,407
10	Ambassador City Jomtien	Thailand	Pattaya	4,219

Full list.

The First World Hotel in Malaysia holds the crown for the largest hotel by number of rooms (7351). 6 of the top 10 largest hotels by number of rooms can be found in Las Vegas.

Fewest accommodation options per tourist

Arrivals / accom rank	City	Country	Accommodation options total	Arrivals 2015 total	Arrivals per accom
1	Macau	Macau	110	14,308,500	130,077
2	Edirne	Turkey	58	3,190,400	55,007
3	Pulau Pinang	Malaysia	53	2,774,500	52,349
4	Burgas	Bulgaria	97	2,842,800	29,307
5	Manama	Bahrain	234	6,413,200	27,407
6	Hong Kong	Hong Kong, China	1469	26,686,000	18,166
7	Singapore	Singapore	963	16,869,400	17,518
8	Doha	Qatar	169	2,930,000	17,337
9	Antalya	Turkey	749	10,868,700	14,511
10	Mecca	Saudi Arabia	516	7,175,200	13,905

Full list.

As an average figure, each accommodation option (hotel, B&B, etc) in Macau must serve 130,077 tourists over a year. Assuming each stays for an average of 7 days and the majority of those bookings are 1 room for 2 people, that means there must at least 1,251 rooms at each accommodation option ((130077/2)/52), assuming maximum efficiency. After further research, I found official figures (2015) that stated there are 29,725 rooms spread across 73 hotels in Macau (note, the above calculation factors in other accommodation options – not just hotels).

Compare that to Orlando, ranked 100 for arrivals / accommodation, where there is 1 accommodation option to every 309 tourists. Tourists have significantly more choice here.

Improvements

I used number of accommodation options, not rooms for these calculations. Cities like Macau and Las Vegas tend to have “mega-hotels” of 3000+ rooms each. It would be more accurate to calculate scarcity of hotel rooms against tourists, as opposed to individual hotels (and other accommodation options) as has been used in this post.

As discussed in the Methodology section of this post, the data does not include rentals from popular sites like Airbnb and other equivalents resulting in a lower numbers reported for this category than actually available. If it was possible to get an accurate count of these rentals this would improve my current workings.

tl;dr

Each hotel (and other accommodation type) must serve 130,077 tourists in Macau.

Get the Data

Get all the data used in this blog post on Google Sheets.