Following Radical Storage’s 2021 and 2022 reports on the psychological condition Paris Syndrome, this new study analyzed 97,409 visitor reviews across 100 of the most visited cities in the world to find out which cities are so romanticized that tourists are overwhelmingly disappointed when they are faced with the reality of the city.
Key findings:
- Tourists in Cancún, Mexico are most likely to experience Paris Syndrome as the city had the highest proportion of visitors (14.2%) disappointed with their visit
- Guangzhou, China, however, came out as the city where travelers are least likely to be disappointed (0.8% of reviews had negative mentions).
- Istanbul is considered the most ‘beautiful’ city while Dublin is the most ‘highly recommended’ according to tourist reviews.
- Toronto had the highest percentage of reviews where tourists felt ‘disappointed’.
- Paris without ‘Paris Syndrome’: Despite being the study’s most disappointing city in 2021, in 2025 Paris had a lower proportion of negative reviews than the study average (1.8% compared to 4.2%)
What are the effects of Paris Syndrome?
Symptoms of Paris Syndrome vary, but hallucinations, anxiety, dizziness, acute delusions, and sweating are among the most commonly reported.
In our 2021 report, the research discovered it was in fact the French capital itself which is most likely to disappoint visitors, however, the updated study in 2022 revealed visitors to Orlando in the U.S. were revealed to be most likely to be left underwhelmed that year.
But in 2025 are you still most likely to experience “Paris Syndrome” (crushing disappointment) in Paris, and “Florence Syndrome” (being positively overwhelmed with emotion) in Florence?
Cities where reality did not meet expectations
Despite Cancún is one of the most popular beach destinations in Mexico – and planned and built for tourists – it has the highest percentage of negative reviews in the study (14.2%) including the greatest number of reviews including the word “disappoint”.
The city also has the highest frequency of reviews referencing “rip off” – so think before you buy when visiting.
Second to Cancún is Antalya, Turkey’s so-called “capital of tourism”, followed by another Central American beach resort, Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic.
| The top ten most underwhelming tourist cities | |||
| Rank | City | Country | Negative comments in reviews |
| 1 | Cancún | Mexico | 14.2% |
| 2 | Antalya | Turkey | 12.2% |
| 3 | Punta Cana | Dominican Republic | 11.9% |
| 4 | Beijing | China | 11.2% |
| 5 | Orlando | United States | 10.6% |
| 6 | Mumbai | India | 10.0% |
| 7 | Honolulu | Hawaii | 9.9% |
| 8 | Johor Bahru | Malaysia | 9.4% |
| 9 | Kyoto | Japan | 9.1% |
| 10 | Playa Del Carmen | Mexico | 9.0% |
You can be left underwhelmed in every corner of the globe: as the top five most disappointing cities are spread across four continents. In 2022, the top five most disappointing locations were Orlando, Jakarta, Pattaya, Denpasar and Guilin. Three years on, the results are completely different.
Cities that exceeded travelers’ expectations
There were plenty of cities that exceeded expectations and impressed visitors. Considering the cities that have the smallest percentage of negative reviews, the study can reveal where to go to avoid disappointment.
Guangzhou, China, was the city that exceeded tourists’ expectations the most, with only 0.8% of the city’s reviews containing negative phrases.
The Peruvian capital city Lima was found to be the second least likely destination to disappoint tourists, followed by Muscat, Oman.
| The top ten cities that didn’t disappoint visitors | |||
| Rank | City | Country | Negative comments in reviews |
| 1 | Guangzhou | China | 0.8% |
| 2 | Lima | Peru | 1.7% |
| 3 | Muscat | Oman | 1.8% |
| =4 | Sapporo | Japan | 2.0% |
| =4 | Zhuhai | China | 2.0% |
| 6 | Vilnius | Lithuania | 2.2% |
| 7 | Santiago | Chile | 2.3% |
| 8 | Tallinn | Estonia | 2.3% |
| 9 | Shenzhen | China | 2.4% |
| =10 | Delhi | India | 2.5% |
| =10 | Mecca | Saudi Arabia | 2.5% |
| =10 | Guilin | China | 2.5% |
Changes since the 2022 and 2021 index
In 2022 tourists in Orlando, U.S were the most likely to experience Paris Syndrome as the city had the highest proportion of visitors complaining the city did not meet expectations.
Three years on, Orlando is still among the top three destinations with the highest percentage of negative reviews. However, the two runners-up in 2022 (Jakarta and Pattaya) have both considerably improved since then. Jakarta ranked 52nd in the study, and Pattaya ranked 66th.
A year before, in 2021, the study found that Paris did in fact live up to the psychological condition’s name, followed by Hong Kong.
Perhaps not such a dramatic improvement as Jakarta or Pattaya have seen, but Paris now ranks 33rd on the list of most disappointing destinations and Hong Kong 39th.
Source: radicalstorage.com/travel/paris-syndrome/
