The vote took place across 36 European countries and used social media information as the judging criteria. The top 52 short-list was then released to the public to vote for the ultimate user favourite, with Ribe, Denmark taking top prize. The scores themselves were in turn used to bestow the Judges Big-Time Small Destination Award, with Ronda in Spain taking the title.
LONDON – Ribe, the oldest extant Danish town, has been named Europe’s best Big-Time Small Destination in a poll of over 46,000 people by hotel reservation specialists hotel.info and travel industry aficionados Globalgrasshopper.com. Devised to give the smaller towns and cities the recognition they deserve, the awards were only open to towns of less than 100,000 inhabitants.
The vote took place across 36 European countries and used social media information as the judging criteria. The top 52 short-list was then released to the public to vote for the ultimate user favourite, with Ribe, Denmark taking top prize. The scores themselves were in turn used to bestow the Judges Big-Time Small Destination Award, with Ronda in Spain taking the title.
Judging Explained
- Hotel Reviews – weighted score of hotel.info customer reviews
- Picture Perfect – weighted score of images found online
- Likeability – weighted score of Facebook likes for the town
- #mentions – weighted score of Instagram # mentions
- Action – weighted score of Foursquare top recommendations
- Adventure – weighted score of the km distance to the nearest airport
‘Team GB’ Unplaced
Arundel (England), Conwy (Wales), Portree (Scotland) and Winchester (England) were the ‘Team GB’ towns shortlisted to face the public vote, but none of the four quintessentially British holiday hotspots made it into the top 10.
Ronda in Spain received the Judges Big-Time Small Destination Award.
Country Manager Andreas Klug of hotel.info said: “We wanted to highlight the towns across Europe that are really punching above their weight in terms of their reviews, social media standing and picturesque views.”
Photo caption: Ribe, the oldest extant Danish town, has been named Europe’s best Big-Time Small Destination.
Tatiana is the news coordinator for TravelDailyNews Media Network (traveldailynews.gr, traveldailynews.com and traveldailynews.asia). Her role includes monitoring the hundreds of news sources of TravelDailyNews Media Network and skimming the most important according to our strategy.
She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communication & Mass Media from Panteion University of Political & Social Studies of Athens and she has been editor and editor-in-chief in various economic magazines and newspapers.
