Ho Chi Minh City at night. Photo by Y Ho Nhu/VnExpress

Last year saw 49.4 million business travelers, 14.8% of all overnight travelers, visiting Asia Pacific destinations. They stayed a total of 235 million nights and spent US$41.4 billion.

Their spending last year in Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital, was US$385 million, and Ho Chi Minh City, the nation’s biggest city, US$661 million.

MasterCard ranks 160 destinations out of 23 markets in the Asia-Pacific and gets the data primarily from national tourism boards in each market.

Shanghai topped the ranking, followed by Tokyo and Singapore.

Local photographers capture the vibrant changes around the Ho Guom (Sword Lake) in Hanoi downtown. Photo by VnExpress

Of all international arrivals,  Ho Chi Minh City ranked 17th in the Asia-Pacific with 4.6 million visitors in 2017 and Hanoi ranked 20th with 3.7 million visitors. Thailand's Bangkok topped the list, drawing 20.1 million foreign arrivals last year.

In August, Hanoi and  Ho Chi Minh City made it to the top 15 destinations in Asia in a ranking by the US News. The ranking considered local prices, accessibility and the variety of attractions in each destination along with travelers’ feedback, and put Hanoi in 14th place followed by  Ho Chi Minh City.

In the Economist Intelligence Unit's recent ranking of  Ho Chi Minh Citythe world’s most livable cities Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and  Ho Chi Minh City were among the top five improvers.

Earlier this year Vietnam’s two biggest cities were named among the 10 cheapest cities  Ho Chi Minh City in Southeast Asia.  Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi were ninth and seventh respectively on the Cost of Living Index 2018 compiled by Numbeo, the world’s largest database of user contributed data about cities and countries worldwide..