Queenstown, New Zealand’s picturesque South Island resort, has been voted third best city by a global travel and leisure magazine.
For the third year running Queenstown was placed third in the US Travel + Leisure magazine’s ‘World’s Best’ awards category for best city, Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific.
It was the only New Zealand city in the top five this year, ranking just shy of Melbourne’s position at number two. Queenstown has a population of 17,000 compared with Melbourne’s 3,850,000.
"Queenstown’s score was only 0.4 behind Melbourne, so we have closed the gap from last year. We’re rated third for our region in the top cities section - but really we’re just a town in the South Island of New Zealand. I’d love to see how we would rate if they had a ‘top town’ category," said Destination Queenstown CEO David Kennedy.
Leading destination
Queenstown’s unique attractions with year round appeal and stunning lake and mountain scenery were winning factors in the readers’ vote, he said.
"Queenstown is consistently the leading tourism destination in New Zealand; a position we’re incredibly proud of and one which is reinforced by Travel + Leisure’s discerning readers who are well travelled and vocal in their opinions."
The US version of Travel + Leisure is the world’s highest circulating travel title. The 13th annual ‘World’s Best’ awards are voted by readers of Travel and Leisure, and are a reflection of the tastes of a sophisticated readership.
Another Queenstown winner was Millbrook Resort, coming in at number 12 for best hotel in the Australia, NZ and South Pacific category.
- Tourism New Zealand
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