Bangkok Voted World'S Best City

[monkfish]

1 - Bangkok 90.30

2 - Chiang Mai, Thailand 89.35

3 - Florence 89.17

4 - San Miguel de Allende, Mexico 89.09

5 - Rome 88.60

6 - Sydney 87.99

7 - Buenos Aires 87.98

8 - Oaxaca, Mexico 87.78

9 - Barcelona 87.71

10 - New York City

http://www.travelandleisure.com/worldsbest/2010/cities

Have to agree about Firenze definitely my favourite city. (well pre Euro anyhow)

[canuckamuck]

LOL! Great city if you can keep out of the burning malls, don't have a sense of smell, love gridlock and noise, and you haven't been anywhere else.

[Globalhot]

Best city for what? Traffic fetish? Air pollution fetish?

[Westen]

I absolutely love Bangkok. I would not want to live here forever but for short, 6-12 month stays I think it is great. One of my favourite cities world-wide. As much as people here seem to complain about Thailand, Bangkok is very well run. If you want to see how difficult and frustrating it could be, go to Manila. Bangkok is like heaven compared to there.

[chaoyang]

From Travel and Leisure magazine for TOURISTS as evaluated by "sights, culture/arts, restaurants/food, people, shopping, value".

[Jingthing]

Cool. I've been to all those places except San Miguel de Allende (is that really a city anyway)?

[Boater]

i am surprised singapore wasnt mentioned

[bkkjames]

Looking at the press release...http://www.travelandleisure.com/worldsbest/press_release - note the dates of the survey = pre-war time.

2010 World’s Best Awards Survey Methodology

A questionnaire developed by the editors of Travel + Leisure, in association with ROI Research Inc., was made available to Travel + Leisure readers at TLWorldsBest.com from December 15, 2009, to March 31, 2010. Readers were invited to participate through Travel + Leisure magazine (January, February, and March issues), and online at TravelandLeisure.com. To protect the integrity of the data, after March 31, 2010, respondents were screened by Travel + Leisure and responses from any identified travel-industry professionals who completed the survey were eliminated from the final tally. The survey website, TLWorldsBest.com, was maintained, monitored, and kept secure by ROI Research Inc., which collected and tabulated the responses and kept them confidential. The scores are indexed averages of responses concerning applicable characteristics. Respondents were asked to rate hotels, islands, destination spas, golf resorts, and rental-car agencies on five characteristics; cities, cruise lines, and tour operators and safari outfitters on six characteristics; and airlines and hotel spas on four characteristics (see below). In the hotel, cruise line, tour operator, airline, and golf resort categories, respondents could also rate additional optional characteristics; these ratings were not included in the final score. For each characteristic, respondents were asked to rate a candidate on a scale of 1 to 5, where “5” means excellent and “1” means poor. Required component ratings were then averaged, creating an overall score. A minimum number of responses was necessary for a candidate to be eligible for inclusion in the World’s Best Awards listings. Some companies were rated in both the cruise line and tour operator and safari outfitter categories, and some properties were rated in both the destination spa and hotel spa categories. In both cases, companies and properties have different scores for each category. These were the categories and characteristics:

[ozzieovaseas]

This comes as no suprise..

We in BK have known for sometime that we are staying in the HUB of worlwide tourism...

old

This will be quickly reported by the TOT, who are eagerly awaiting (any day now) for the influx of millions of wealthy tourists, therefor once again clogging old Swampy to a standstill...

No doubt the reasons for this are the many succesful past and future CRACKDOWNS announced by the government..all on anything which might do us farang harm..

Now only if they'd announce a crackdown on a certain species of land dwelling two-legged walking brown Pirahnas

[Berkshire]

Interesting that Thai cities would occupy the top two spots. My question is how long will it take for the Thai bashers/Thai haters to come out and discredit this list?

[Jingthing]

i am surprised singapore wasnt mentioned

I'm not. Although personally I love Singapore and feel that it is one of the world's best food cities (to my taste, beats Bangkok easily) it is not perceived as "exotic" enough by westerners.

[BSJ]

I don't like big cities in general...and I fail to see how Bangers topped the list???

[milkycheese]

I don't like big cities in general...and I fail to see how Bangers topped the list???

e

Some of the best club nights in the world, food and people from around the world making it a melting pot of atmosphere. Great priced housing to buy or rent, designer shopping, stone throught o beaches or mountains in the north 1 hour flight ... blah blah ...

BANGKOK ROCKS

[james24]

Bangkok is one of the worst!!!! What pansy made this rubbish up. Barcelona as 9, New York as 10, what a load of codswallop

[kunash]

i am surprised singapore wasnt mentioned

i love Singapore. also worth a mention are St. Petersburg ( love this city ) and Cape Town ( love this place too ). also Brisbane and Sydney, and Venice.

[Soutpeel]

Bangkok is one of the worst!!!! What pansy made this rubbish up. Barcelona as 9, New York as 10, what a load of codswallop

Just maybe the vast majority of questions in the survey related to the availibility and quality of adult entertainment....

Would go along way to explain the top spot......

Or alternatively TAT have a budget to pay people to go on-line and fill in the surveys ??

Bangkok...best city in the world ??....my ar*e

[Garry9999]

Bangkok is one of the worst!!!! What pansy made this rubbish up. Barcelona as 9, New York as 10, what a load of codswallop

Just maybe the vast majority of questions in the survey related to the availibility and quality of adult entertainment....

Would go along way to explain the top spot......

Or alternatively TAT have a budget to pay people to go on-line and fill in the surveys ??

Bangkok...best city in the world ??....my ar*e

Best city for rooting and drinking maybe.

[FarangCravings]

OBVIOUSLY A JOKE

was it penned by the NATION

[KIWIBATCH]

Bangkok number 1.....BS...!!!....if BS was dynamite whoever wrote this piece would blow the place apart

[Garry9999]

The world's top cities offering the best quality of life

(New York City is the base city with a score of 100 points)

2010 Rank

2009 Rank

City

Country

1

1

ViennaAustria

2

2

ZurichSwitzerland

3

3

GenevaSwitzerland

=4

=4

VancouverCanada

=4

=4

AucklandNew Zealand

6

6

DüsseldorfGermany

=7

8

FrankfurtGermany

=7

=7

MunichGermany

9

9

BernSwitzerland

10

10

SydneyAustralia

11

11

CopenhagenDenmark

12

12

WellingtonNew Zealand

13

13

AmsterdamNetherlands

14

=16

OttawaCanada

15

14

BrusselsBelgium

16

15

TorontoCanada

17

=16

BerlinGermany

18

18

MelbourneAustralia

19

19

LuxembourgLuxembourg

20

20

StockholmSweden

=21

21

PerthAustralia

=21

22

MontrealCanada

23

28

HamburgGermany

=24

23

NürnbergGermany

=24

24

OsloNorway

=26

-

CanberraAustralia

=26

25

DublinIreland

=28

=26

CalgaryCanada

=28

=26

SingaporeSingapore

30

-

StuttgartGermany

31

29

HonoluluUSA

=32

=30

AdelaideAustralia

=32

=29

San FranciscoUSA

34

32

ParisFrance

35

35

HelsinkiFinland

36

34

BrisbaneAustralia

37

=35

BostonUSA

38

37

LyonFrance

39

=38

LondonUK

40

=35

TokyoJapan

=41

41

MilanItaly

=41

40

KobeJapan

=41

=38

YokohamaJapan

44

=42

BarcelonaSpain

=45

=44

LisbonPortugal

=45

=44

ChicagoUSA

=45

=44

Washington DCUSA

48

48

MadridSpain

49

49

New York CityUSA

50

50

SeattleUSAResearch by Mercer Consulting

http://www.citymayors.com

[kissdani]

Cool. I've been to all those places except San Miguel de Allende (is that really a city anyway)?

Are you an American express customer?

[VocalNeal]

I don't like big cities in general...and I fail to see how Bangers topped the list???

e

Some of the best club nights in the world, food and people from around the world making it a melting pot of atmosphere. Great priced housing to buy or rent, designer shopping, stone throught o beaches or mountains in the north 1 hour flight ... blah blah ...

...and also the home of Wall Street school for English.

[Ulysses G.]

Best city for rooting and drinking maybe.

That's good enough for me!

Edited July 13, 2010 by Ulysses G.

[DP25]

It pretty much is

[geeky]

#1 - city in Thailand #2 - city in Thailand

yeah, sure I trust it ... LOL

[Thongkorn]

dollair. how do you equate good living .

[eggomaniac]

it dbl posted???

Edited July 13, 2010 by eggomaniac

[eggomaniac]

The Attached pictures show why I would NEVER vote for BKK as the 'best' city in the World!

The world's top cities offering the best quality of life

ViennaAustria

2

2

ZurichSwitzerland

3

3

GenevaSwitzerland

=4

=4

VancouverCanada

=4

=4

Of course, if the rankings were on the prettiest Uni students who would line the streets like cheerleaders and take any diseased old man to a room for a few thousand Bhat, then BKK WOULD top the charts.

Edited July 13, 2010 by eggomaniac

[surayu]

It's amazing what could you buy these days with a few thousands bahts....worldwide.....and then you see the same people/organizations repeating theirself over and over again.......

Bribery: Thailand's favourite pastime

By The Nation

Published on August 14, 2009

The Bangkok International Film Festival scandal is just the tip of yet another iceberg

Is it becoming a race to punish the alleged bribers and the bribed? We shall see, but things are definitely heating up for Jutamas Siriwan, former governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand. The opening of a trial in the United States of those who allegedly paid money to Thai officials between 2002 and 2006 to get special treatment in the Bangkok International Film Festival means that she will be worried as much by what happens in the US courts as by the local legal process.

It will be interesting to see how things go. It is rare for two countries to have parallel legal procedures in the same corruption case. While a verdict in one country may not be legally binding in the other - meaning that a "guilty" verdict against the alleged bribers in America may not necessarily mean Jutamas will automatically lose her case here - we are in for some unique precedents. In this interconnected world, corruption cases can span across continents.

Jutamas' name has reportedly come up in US court transcripts. Locally, she has vehemently denied involvement in the bribery scandal, which allegedly took place when she was TAT governor during the Thaksin government. Local investigators have established that irregularities concerning the film festival involved bribery, favouritism and suspicious budgets that were within Jutamas's power to approve. The case has been forwarded to the National Anti-Corruption Commission, which is expected to make a decision soon on how to proceed.

In the US, the trial of two Hollywood producers accused of trying to bribe their way into running the Bangkok International Film Festival is now underway at the US Federal District Court in Los Angeles. The US indictment, filed in December 2007, claims that Gerald Green, the executive producer of the 2006 film "Rescue Dawn", and his wife Patricia, conspired to pay a Thai government official more than US$1.7 million (Bt58 million) to land the contract to run the festival, which would allegedly yield more than $10 million in return.

Nothing seems too complicated here. The case is no different from a Thai contractor paying a politician under the table to beat other bidders to a lucrative deal. The American couple is being subjected to the hand of their country's foreign business law that prohibits such practice. But if the prospect of a $10 million profit had lured them into taking the risk, we may be seeing only the tip of an iceberg here.

The US laws against corrupt practices of American business people overseas shook the Thai political scene a few years back, also during the Thaksin government. The scandal over the CTX airport scanners allegedly involved greater kickbacks, but suspected offenders in both countries have apparently slipped through the net. It is no surprise, however, that the higher the stakes, the harder it is to catch the big fish.

It remains to be seen whether the Greens' trial will conclude before the Jutamas case or vice versa. Gerald Green, 76, and his wife Patricia, 53, have pleaded not guilty to all 22 counts of a second superseding indictment. In addition to foreign corrupt practice charges, they face counts for money laundering and illegally transporting money-laundering proceeds. Gerald Green is also charged with obstruction and Patricia Green with filing false tax returns. They are staring at several years in jail, and the US government is also seeking forfeiture of some of their property.

There are "innocent" bribe-givers, those convinced that they have to go with the flow in order to get things done, and "innocent" bribe-takers, those who are offered rewards by notorious people engaged in cut-throat business competition. But there is no doubt that bribery, friendly or forced, has become a deep-rooted tradition in doing business in, or with, Thailand. And this evil feeds on the crackdowns against it. If you stand accused of bribery, one response is to bribe your way out of it.

If Jutamas is found guilty and punished, it will be among Thailand's rare successful prosecutions of senior officials or former senior officials. In fact, cases have scarcely reached the prosecution stage if they involve high-ranking personnel in this country. If they do, it takes so long to wrap up that future or potential offenders are more likely to be encouraged than dispirited.

It may be a race between Thailand and the United States to punish alleged wrongdoers in the Bangkok International Film Festival scandal, but the parallel legal processes are anything but a joint statement of intent. Bribery is easy to do, and not hard to trace, but impossible to eradicate. And in Thailand, all the lines have been blurred. If we asked oneShinawatra whether a Daimler worth nearly Bt10 million given to Somboon Rahong about a decade ago, or Bt2 million that his lawyers left at the Criminal Court last year, were some sort of bribes, the best answer we would get is that they were just honest mistakes.

[RJF]

It would help the discussion if people read and think before reacting. The survey was held before the riots. Cities were voted for from a travel perspective - not from a 'live in' perspective. And do realize that Travel + Leisure aims at a premium segment. I assume their readers tend to stay in pretty nice hotels, far away from the prostitute infested gutters that are so often referred to by members of this forum. Bangkok from a premium 5 star is somewhat different than Bangkok from the Nana hotel. We can argue if their readers get to see the 'real' Bangkok, however you may define that. That's a different discussion however.