Anyone writing about tourism receives daily portion of e-mails, notifications or news about something tending to be the best. Best destinations, best cities, best sunset spots, best beaches, best islands, best restaurants, best hotels, best looking women, best looking men, just pick one. And most of those lists are more similar than their authors would probably like.
Well, when we come to some really big numbers of jurors, things might look a little bit different.
Trivago is one of the world's top hotels' price comparison site, they brag about having more than 700,000 hotels listed. The collected some 82 millions travellers reviews, from 200 different booking websites, and created their Top 100 Reputation Ranking of destinations with highest grades, written by travellers themselves. Only destinations with more than 130 accommodations - i.e. hotels, hostels, B&Bs, apartments - were included, so this is really the top of the pops. Guess what? On Top 100 list Dubrovnik is number 4, and Split number 10.
Even if as local patriots believe that Split and Dubrovnik deserve their place on this list, it's still a full of surprises. Or, to be more precise, this Top100 is one big surprise, something like Usain Bolt losing Olympics 100m final. The highest grades has Sorrento (Italy), followed by Dresden (Germany), Gdansk (Poland), Dubrovnik, Siem Reap (Cambodia), Krakow (Poland), Budapest (Hungary), Chicago (USA), Warsaw (Poland) and Split. Three Polish and two Croatian cities in Top 10. Now, that's the revenge of the little ones. Check out the last 10: Delhi, Rio de Janeiro, Paris, Nice, Kuala Lumpur, Pattaya, London, Singapore, Bandung, Jakarta, Manilla. Cannes and Monte Carlo didn't even make to the Top100, maybe rich and famous don't write hotel reviess. Among giants, to mention just some of them, Venice is 21st, Florence 26th, Athens 36th, New York 59th, Rome 60th, even Las Vegas is 71st.
February 28, 2014