Sydney is the second most popular place to visit in the world, beating Melbourne and losing out to Cape Town, according to an online tourism poll. TripAdvisor asked its users to choose their favorite and most visited destinations to determine the Travellers Choice Destination award winners for 2011.
Cape Town at the toe of the African continent topped the chart with Sydney and Machu Picchu in Peru coming in second and third. The destinations beat Paris and Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro, in fourth and fifth spots respectively. Filling the remainder of the top 10 global destinations list were the cities of New York, Rome, London, Barcelona and Hong Kong.
Sydney was the only Australian city to be included on the top 25 destinations in the world list. In the Australia-only category, Melbourne played second fiddle to Sydney, followed by Perth and Byron Bay in third and fourth positions respectively. Cairns took the fifth spot, followed by Queensland rivals Surfers Paradise and Brisbane. Sydney also took out top spot in the South Pacific list, beating off stiff competition from New Zealand’s Queenstown. Melbourne and Perth took third and fourth spots respectively in this category.
WORLDS TOP 10
- Cape Town, South Africa
- Sydney, Australia
- Machu Picchu, Peru
- Paris, France
- Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- New York City, USA
- Rome, Italy
- London, UK
- Barcelona, Spain
- Hong Kong
SOUTH PACIFIC TOP 10
AUSTRALIA TOP 15
