According to the New York's based Travel + Leisure megazine, poll of 23,000 voters - mainly Americans, Thailand has two cities in the top 5 popular destinations.

The ranks are as follows:

1. Florence

2. Rome

3. Bangkok

4. Sydney

5. Chiang Mai

6. Cape Town

7. Buenow Aires

8. New York

9. Belrut

10. San Francisco

The magazine readers tend to be discerning, high-income, high-spending executive Americans.

So, where the bloody hel_l are you?

According to the New York's based Travel + Leisure megazine, poll of 23,000 voters - mainly Americans, Thailand has two cities in the top 5 popular destinations.

The ranks are as follows:

1. Florence

2. Rome

3. Bangkok

4. Sydney

5. Chiang Mai

6. Cape Town

7. Buenow Aires

8. New York

9. Belrut

10. San Francisco

The magazine readers tend to be discerning, high-income, high-spending executive Americans.

So, where the bloody hel_l are you?

I just got back from Rome a few weeks ago. I'll be heading to Sydney at the end of August. Is that good enough for you?

By the way, these two Thai towns were in their top 10 destinations list last year as well.

Bizarre . . . I doubt that even % of 1% of the US `population has even heard of Chiang Mai, how can the poll be of 'discerning' Americans when everything Mexican, Barbadian, generally Caribbean, London and Paris (among others) are left out.

Beirut?!

discerning!!!!

Poll paid for by the ToT

Edited July 16, 200619 yr by Sing_Sling

This is obviously some kind of a windup. "Belrut", I assume is a typo and should be "Beirut". If not, I've never heard of it. One of the top ten cities? I don't think so.

Edited July 16, 200619 yr by Soju

I frequent tripadvisor.com and think their forums are great sources of information and the most popular forums by number of topics and number of posts are:

Europe Forums

Italy 37,895 165,047

United Kingdom 24,566 202,844

France 23,150 148,581

Asia Forums

Thailand 10,747 43,778

China 6,035 27,661

India 4,619 20,054

United States Forums

Nevada 34,040 269,355

Florida 31,812 180,394

New York 27,472 171,851

For the average American it's Las Vegas and Orlando that is where they head to while the more affluent international traveller heads to London or Paris or Rome.

I checked out the magazine's home page, and found out how they got their "data" for this survey.

"Subscribers" were asked to participate in February and March 2006.

As well, a "select group of subscribers" were sent email invitations to participate.

They supposedly have a subscriber base of just over 942,000, plus 35,000 single copy sales per month. If they had to email people to get them to participate, I'd say they weren't getting a very good response to their initial call for subscriber participation.

When you take the subscriber base, and then ask them to identify the best cities and "islands" in various parts of the world, as well as the best hotels, airlines (international and domestic), best large cruise line, best small cruise line, best safari outfitters and best car rental agencies, you can bet that some places aren't getting a lot of votes.

Consider that a large number of the subscribers probably don't travel that much, expecially outside the country. Then consider how many of those that do travel, actually use a large or small cruise line, or rent a car at their destination, or use a "safari outfitter", or visit an "island" in a certain region of the world.

(Cape Breton Island in Canada was voted the Best Island in North America this year. How many people actually went there and rated it ? 2 ? 3 ?)

I mean seriously, how many people go to Beirut or Cape Town as travel destinations ? But places like Paris, Athens, Cairo and other well known spots don't make the top 10 ?

Just goes to show, doesn't take a lot of real, hard, solid data to sway public opinion. Just write a story and don't mention little things like how many people actually voted for each category, and then sell it as an "indepth, knowledgeable" article. People will look at this and go "Wow, maybe we should go to Beirut on our next holiday, instead of Paris !"

Pathetic.

Can't imagine that Beirut will be anywhere near the top 10 next year.

It'll be near the bottom with Baghdad and Mogadishu.

I think its pretty obvious that survey is crap.

Ching Mai? lol

Wonder who was buying Full page 4 color that month.

Can't imagine that Beirut will be anywhere near the top 10 next year.

It'll be near the bottom with Baghdad and Mogadishu.

Can't imagine them having many subscribers left by next year if they're that retarded and don't even know how to conduct a proper survey. They may have some gullible subscribers left, but I for one would immediately cancel my subscription to any publication that tried to pawn off some crap survey like that on me. The OP said, "The magazine readers tend to be discerning, high-income, high-spending executive Americans." Hopefully they'll be discerning enough to write letters to the editior and tell them where to stick their magazine and retarded surveys.

Can't imagine that Beirut will be anywhere near the top 10 next year.

It'll be near the bottom with Baghdad and Mogadishu.

Can't imagine them having many subscribers left by next year if they're that retarded and don't even know how to conduct a proper survey. They may have some gullible subscribers left, but I for one would immediately cancel my subscription to any publication that tried to pawn off some crap survey like that on me. The OP said, "The magazine readers tend to be discerning, high-income, high-spending executive Americans." Hopefully they'll be discerning enough to write letters to the editior and tell them where to stick their magazine and retarded surveys.

You forget the tageted readership . . .

Chaing Mai and Beirut . . . instead of Paris and London . . . Good Grief!

Probably most of the polled sudscribers are wannabee travelers succumbing to bullshit adds mixed in with some sex tourists looking at the lovelies.

Probably most of the polled sudscribers are wannabee travelers succumbing to bullshit adds mixed in with some sex tourists looking at the lovelies.

London and Paris are so....well...20th century! The 21st century new breed of upscale traveler wants a bit of adventure as well.

Sure, give 'em a couple of BKK traffic jams and a flood or two in CM--that'll do it.

Edited July 16, 200619 yr by toptuan

This survey sounds a little suspect from a statistical point of view. It really doesn't tell us much.

And yes, I think Beruit will be off the list for a while---again!

Surin missed out again then