Melbourne has been named the top Australian city that the world wants to explore in 2024.

With the new year just around the corner, Airbnb data revealed 24 global trending destinations for 2024.

The list, which wasn’t ranked, included Paris, France; Tokyo, Japan; Marrakesh, Morocco; and Milan, Italy.

While some countries, such as Italy, Japan, the US and Brazil, had multiple entries on the list, Melbourne was Australia’s sole representative.

Airbnb attributed the nod to Victoria’s capital city to an “eclectic mix of coffee culture, food, art, theatre and sport”.

Melbourne was also a top attraction for Australians with Richmond and East Melbourne among favourite suburbs, based on searches by users living in Australia for future travel during 2024.

It isn’t the first time this year that Melbourne has been crowned as one of Australia’s top tourist destinations; Roy Morgan research found the city to be the No.1 dream destination for Australians’ domestic holidays.

At the time, David Beirman, adjunct fellow in tourism at the University of Technology Sydney, told TND some of Melbourne’s biggest draws were major sporting events, its iconic laneways and a “fantastic” food scene which reflected the city’s ethnic diversity.

“If you’re a foodie tourist, it’s probably the best place in Australia,” Beirman said.

He said Melbourne offered a stronger variety of short-term accommodation options at different price levels than competitors such as Sydney.

“If you’re staying in the CBD of Sydney, and most other capital cities in Australia, you can expect to pay an absolute arm and a leg to stay in a half-decent hotel,” he said.

“That’s not necessarily so in Melbourne. Sure, there are the top five hotels which will cost plenty, but there’s also a lot more budget accommodation [than some other cities].”

Melbourne was also named the fourth-best city in Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific by Travel + Leisure this year; it nabbed the title of world’s friendliest city in 2022, and it is considered to be the country’s third-best capital city to be in during a zombie apocalypse.

While other Australian cities and regions failed to crack Airbnb’s list of 24 global trending destinations for 2024, Australians looking to travel domestically showed a lot of interest in Rockhampton, Queensland; North Adelaide, South Australia; and Parramatta, New South Wales.

For international travel, the data found Australians are keen to explore Japan most of all, with areas such as Kyoto, Osaka, and Tokyo’s Shibuya just some of the Japanese destinations listed by Airbnb.