Few days ago, TripAdvisor®, the travel planning and booking site, announced the winners of its Travelers' Choice® awards for destinations, recognizing travelers' favorite places around the world. This year, Bali, Indonesia is the global winner.
Why Bali is named the best destination on earth ?
With its white and black sand beaches, emerald rice terraces and some of the world’s best spa hotels, Bali has been crowned the world’s favourite destination.
Travellers who use the TripAdvisor website have praised an island that for many embodies exoticism, dripping in lush vegetation and soaked with a spirituality that is as easy to stumble upon as the delicate offerings of petals placed on its pavements each morning.
Shrines featuring grimacing demon queens sit in the shadow of the island’s mystical volcanoes, while golden beaches in the south are pounded by surf that attracts Australian tourists.
It was the first time that Trip Advisor had taken islands into account when compiling its Traveller’s Choice ratings.
Price may have a lot to do with Bali’s popularity also, with Britons able to benefit from a high standard of food and accommodation for their money.
Topping the list was good news for Indonesia’s economy, which relies heavily on income from the tourism sector.
Travellers' choice top ten destinations
- Bali
- London
- Paris
- Rome
- New York City
- Crete
- Barcelona
- Siem Reap
- Prague
- Phuket
London was the second most popular destination with TripAdvisor users. The favourites were determined by an algorithm that judges the quality and quantity of users’ reviews and ratings for hotels, restaurants and attractions in the past 12 months. It also considers traveller booking interest.
European cities fared well in the list of destinations most popular with travellers, with six making the top ten. After London came Paris, which is reassuring for the city's tourism sector following the spate of terrorist attacks in 2015, then Rome. Crete was sixth in the list of favourites, followed by Barcelona and Prague, which ranked ninth.
(This article was partly taken from The Guardian , TripAdvisor, and Channel NewsAsia)
