Queenstown has been named one of the top five holiday spots in the South Pacific by <I>Travel and Leisure</I> magazine. Photo / Stephen Russell
Queenstown has been named one of the top five holiday spots in the South Pacific by <I>Travel and Leisure</I> magazine. Photo / Stephen Russell
KEY POINTS:
LOS ANGELES - Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown have made the top five holiday spots in the South Pacific.
Travel and Leisure magazine ranked the top cities in the region, which includes Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific countries, with Sydney easily coming in first with a score of86.27 out of 100.
Melbourne was second at 79.82, followed by Queenstown (78.73), Christchurch (76.60) and Wellington (75.43).
In the hotel category for the same region, Taupo's Huka Lodge was No. 1.
Huka Lodge also ranked 58th best hotel in the world; no Australian hotels made the list of 100.
And despite its top regional spot, Sydney was nonetheless losing its shine as one of the world's great cities for a holiday.
For the second consecutive year Sydney, once the undisputed number No.1 ranked city on the planet, has slipped further down the ladder on a respected annual survey of world travellers.
The poll, released in the US today, ranked Sydney as the fifth best city in the world.
Italy's Florence was voted No.1, Buenos Aires second, Bangkok third and Rome fourth.
Last year Sydney was ranked fourth.
It has been a fall from grace for Sydney as Travel and Leisure's subscribers, who decide the poll, for almost a decade had the harbour city as their top city in the world.
In eight of the last 12 years, Sydney was ranked No.1.
This year Sydney beat New York (6th), Udaipur, India (7th), Istanbul (8th), San Francisco (9th) and Cape Town (10th).
The poll is respected as Travel and Leisure goes to great pains to weed out travel industry professionals from voting.
Subscribers are also prevented from voting more than once.
Subscribers rated India's luxury Oberoi Udaivilas hotel in Udaipur as the world's best hotel, while Bali was named the best holiday island.
Singapore Airlines was once again named the No.1 international airline, while Qantas picked up one spot from last year's survey to claim the seventh position.
