Paris has best appeal followed by London, Sydney and New York

The study evaluates the power and appeal of each city’s image, providing a holistic and detailed perspective based on six key dimensions.

For the fourth time since the survey began, the global public regards Paris as the highest rated out of 50 cities. Australian cities also show improvement: Sydney overtakes New York (4^th) to earn a spot back in the top three and Melbourne jumps to 7^th place, surpassing Amsterdam (8^th) and Berlin (10^th).

The six key dimensions for the evaluation are:

• Presence (the city’s international status and standing)
• Place (its physical outdoors aspect and transport)
• Prerequisites (basic requirements, such as affordable accommodations and the standard of public amenities)
• People (friendliness, cultural diversity, how safe one feels)
• Pulse (interesting things to do)
• Potential (the economic and educational opportunities available).

CBI^SM also demonstrates the precariousness of cities resting on their nation’s brand. A number of cities underperform their nation’s standing as established in this year’s Nation Brands Index^SM. Berlin is a prime example, just managing to hold onto a spot within the top-tier of cities. “This might be surprising given that Germany as a country took 1^st place in the 2017 Nation Brands Index rankings and boasted the most balanced image of all nations surveyed”, Vadim Volos, senior vice president of Social and Strategic Research and head of CBI^SM at GfK, comments. “This shows that cities cannot rest on their nation’s brand, they must cultivate their own unique images as well. ”

Western cities tend to dominate the top half of cities, and in previous years, Western cities benefitted noticeably more than Eastern cities in the global public’s estimations. 2017 shows a change in fortunes with marked improvement for many that is not constrained by region or developmental stage. For example, Tokyo is one of only a handful of non-Western cities that resides within the top half of cities. After experiencing a score decline in 2013, Tokyo has rebuilt and grown its image in the two consecutive CBI^SM studies. Tokyo enjoys the greatest score gain of any city (+1.79) in 2017’s CBI^SM to draw to a tie for 11^thposition with Vancouver, surpassing Madrid, Barcelona, Washington D.C., Toronto, and Vienna.

Looking at CBI^SM‘s Middle Eastern and African regions, Dubai is the only city within this region measured that does not rest within the bottom tier of cities. Dubai falls narrowly outside the top half (27^th), with its Presence (15^th) and Place (16^th) rankings anchoring and propelling its image. Though Dubai is the city within the region with the best reputation, Durban wins the award for most improved (+1.51), which allows it to surpass Cairo.

The latest Anholt-GfK City Brands Index^SM (CBI^SM) reveals that Paris retains its position at the top.