The Most Talked About Global Gateway Cities 2023
The Most Talked About Global Gateway Cities 2023
“Digital messaging powers investment into global Gateway cities.”
ING Media’s research shows that a series of direct positive correlations exist between digital visibility, soft power, inward “green” foreign direct investment totals and volume of conversations associated with investment and business. Aggregating these metrics into a unified benchmark resulted in our overall Investment Opportunity Rank, a succinct measurement to rank Gateway cities by how their digital performance affects economic output.
Our Gateway cities Investment Opportunity Rank is not determined by one single element – yet growing digital output leads to improved performance across other pillars.
A superior soft power profile, as well as high awareness around cultural assets boosts “green” FDI and digital output, fostering a city’s growth and investor returns.
International and domestic investors seek to deploy their capital into cities and their cultural assets to exercise their own soft power and ESG compliance. Communicating soft power increases a Gateway city’s “pull”, unearthing long-term future value to investors.
Future investment opportunity prospects are dependent on a variety of social and economic indicators, yet scoring highly in digital visibility and soft power directly influences investor intent.
ING Media’s research into the worlds most talked about Gateway cities provides vital insight into the impact of digital messaging on cities as brands – and how this affects future investment prospects and economic growth.
ING has taken a selection of 30 cities, based on their global recognition as gateway destinations, and ranked them according to their share of online mentions, sourced from online news, ‘X’ (Twitter), forums, blogs, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitch, comments, and reviews.
Gateway cities are recognised as large, globally significant and highly connected cities. Typically, these cities are large financial centres, those which anchor regional economies, acting as channels by which trade and commerce flows into a country. They play a crucial role in culture and society; instrumental in facilitating international trade, fostering cultural exchange, driving innovation, and serving as focal points for diplomacy and collaboration on a global scale.
As with our already published reports on European and UK cities, this year we have extended the research beyond digital visibility metrics. As part of this we have incorporated several new rankings to fully understand the benefits of elevating a city’s brand through communications and messaging.
The first element is soft power.
ING has created an index to measure this, drawn from a unique set of indicators designed to rank how global Gateway cities compare; assessing the influence of culture, travel, education, diversity and environmental credentials on a city’s investment ambitions.
To focus on the looking economic transition, our report also incorporates additional investment indicators, ranking each country by inward “green” FDI flows since 2017 to gauge how digital mentions correlate to capital investment in sustainable energy infrastructure.
The research indicates that several strong correlations exist between a city’s digital visibility, soft power, inward “green” FDI total, and number of its mentions in conversations around investment and business. We have aggregated this into one simple benchmark, ING’s Investment Opportunity Rank – which shows that the greater a city’s digital output, the higher it sits on this ranking.
If you would like to learn more about the report and how ING works with cities, please contact:
“In this research, we have measured direct FDI inflows into energy infrastructure projects. Democratisation of energy and fostering equitable cities is a core component of successful communications as global cities seek to elevate their brands and inward investment prospects in the race to Net Zero.”
THE MOST TALKED ABOUT GLOBAL GATEWAY CITIES (2023)
• The top five most visible Gateway cities are Tokyo (1st), New York (2nd), Paris (3rd), London (4th) and Madrid (5th).
• The top five ranking cities across our soft power index are London (1st), New York (2nd), Paris (3rd), Los Angeles (4th) and Tokyo (5th).
• The top cities which enjoy the most digital mentions associated with investment and business are New York (1st), Tokyo (2nd), London (3rd), Paris (4th) and Los Angeles (5th).
• These total investment and business conversations are weighted towards the Americas (38.9%), leading APAC (34.4%) and EMEA (26.6%).
• The United States accounts for a third of all conversations around investment and business across our selected cities (33%), with Japan (16.3%), China (7.5%), The UK (7.1%) and France (6.9%) following.
• Tokyo ranks first in our digital visibility rankings and has the highest population of any city in our research. Paris ranks third, despite having a population seventeen times smaller, showcasing its influence over international audiences.
Dubai gets the most mentions on TikTok out of all Gateway Cities.
Johannesburg mostly gets mentioned in English, yet its low visibility ranking suggests it should broaden its international reach.
Paris is the top “Instagrammable” city defined by its cityscape and fashion.
Singapore gets mentioned the most in Bangkok, thanks to Thai conversations about the city related to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.
Berlin ranks 20th in business-related conversations, owing to its prominent status as a tech hub, and climate-conscious urban planning.
Buenos Aires is the third largest economy in Latin America, fast-growing sectors include biotech and the knowledge economy. It leads in manufacturing and agriculture.
Sydney’s most investable industries include agricultural tech, security equipment and construction.
Copenhagen is an emerging cleantech hub, with an objective to reduce C02 emissions by 70% by 2030.
ING Media’s investigation into The Most Talked About Global Gateway Cities (2023) covers 30 cities, based on a series of publicly available global gateway city rankings, ranking them by total digital mentions over a calendar year from July 2022 through to June 2023. These mentions originate from Online news, “X” (Twitter), forums, blogs, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitch, comments, and reviews. Spelling variants included to cover the following languages: English, Chinese (simplified), Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, Japanese, Russian, German, French, Malaysian, Indonesian, as well as the city’s native language. Mentions containing sports, in particular football, have been limited.
ING Media’s Soft Power rankings categorises our selected 30 cities by several quantifiable social and cultural metrics that impact a city’s potential exposure on a global stage (see chart).
If you would like to learn more about the report and how ING works with cities, please contact: citiesunit@ing-media.com
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