Bangkok dethroned as the best tourist city
After four years at the top of the list of the best world and Asian tourist cities, Bangkok has lost its top spot this year. With the small consolation – that is – that Thailand's capital has remained in third place in the top ten of Asian cities.
The sensitive defeat is not entirely unexpected because of the mood, both online and offline, of the authoritative magazine Travel + Leisure took place between December 2 and March 31, a period when countries advised their citizens to avoid Bangkok or exercise extreme caution.
The top position of the world's and Asia's best tourist cities was taken over by Kyoto this year. Bangkok was also overtaken by Cambodia's Siem Reap in both lists. Chiang Mai, which was ranked 2013th in the world in XNUMX, has also dropped.
In the poll, participants rate unique sights, culture, food, people and money for value.
Acting Governor of Bangkok Amorn Kitchawengkul is not surprised by the result. He says that the municipality has planned talks with the business community about improving safety measures and infrastructure.
There will be more surveillance cameras in public areas and the sidewalks have been refurbished and reorganised [?].
The extra security measures should have a magical effect on tourists and entice them to return. According to Amorn, Bangkok continues to be a "promising destination."
(Source: Bangkok Post, June 6, 2014)
It is now time to ask Mr. Suthep if he and his clique will take responsibility for the damage that has been done? I assume that Bangkok will no longer be number 1 in the next ten years. I even assume that Bangkok will drop even further on this list. Thailand has fallen out of favor in tourism. Vietnam and Myamar are in-the land of turmoil, sorry, smile, . completely out
@Dick van der Lugt,
“There are more surveillance cameras in public areas and the sidewalks have been cleaned up and re-organized [?].”
Reorganized can be translated as restructured (in addition to refurbished also 'reorganized'? No idea what that means).
@ Franky R When editing messages from the Bangkok Post, I often come across formulations and words, which make me wonder: what exactly is meant by that? I suspect this is because the Thai language is much less precise than the English language. Reorganizing can mean anything. As a journalist I would ask: what do you mean by that? But asking questions that matter is not common practice among Thai journalists, it seems. Pira Sudham, author of People of Esarn, among others, writes in English because, he says, he can express himself more precisely in that language than in Thai.
I wonder when the reorganization of the footpaths will start. Been announced for a while, but haven't seen anything yet. Suppose Sukumvit is free of stalls, what a dead mess that must be.
A strange enumeration, because the cities vary considerably in size and population density. Kyoto now ahead of Bangkok? No wonder. It is a city with beautiful temples, parks and castles. Nicely organized too. When you arrive at the station, you can buy a ticket for a bus that is valid all day and takes you past most of the temples. You can get in and out as often as you like.
You can rent bicycles and explore the city.
You can also do many of those things in Bangkok, but you have to remember that Bangkok is many times bigger than Kyoto. And the traffic is chaos.
What, then, is considered when designating a city in the popularity scale? Charleston in second place? What did the city do to deserve that? It may have been a few years since I was there, but there was nothing special about what I saw.
Bangkok is much more interesting.
Like Sjaak S, I too wonder which criteria are decisive in the ranking. Siem Reap, for example, is in 4th place, it is a nice place but no more than that and not comparable to Pnom Penh and even less to the much larger Bangkok. Think for yourself that the proximity of the indeed beautiful Angkar Wat has had a major influence on the voting behavior. But a temple complex as large as the province of Utrecht is, in my opinion, a completely different experience than a metropolis and then it is comparing apples with oranges.