Australian Cities Ranked Low on Friendliness Scale
While we Australians might like to think we're as charming and friendly AF, it seems not many people agree, according to a list of the friendliest cities in a world.
A new ranking 'top 100' list of the world's most welcoming cities have been released by holiday website TravelBird, and ranks the World Tourism Organisation's biggest global tourist destinations according to how welcome they make tourists feel based on feedback from more than 15,000 travel journalists all over the world.
The rankings take into account factors such as the "happiness" of locals, safety and security, how welcoming tourists are made to feel at the port of entry, English proficiency and “overtourism”. Simply put, over-tourism means there are too many tourists in relation to the number of locals.
"If a city is over its tourism carrying capacity, then issues such as overcrowding, lengthy queues and rising living costs occur, which all negatively impact local residents and therefore affect how welcoming they are to tourists," TravelBird explained.
So who came out on top?
The top spot went to Singapore, which attracted a perfect score for its welcoming port of entry, and high scores for safety and openness to hosting tourists.
Next came Stockholm and Helsinki, followed by San Francisco and the Dutch city of Rotterdam. Lisbon, Tokyo, Oslo, Zurich and Orlando rounded out the top 10.
So where were Australia's cities on the list?
Sydney was the highest ranked of the Aussie cities, at 55, between Taipei and Jakarta.
The Harbour City scored high in terms of the happiness of its people and English proficiency (obviously), but not so high in terms of safety and the welcoming nature of its ports of entry.
Melbourne was at 68. It scored very well for the happiness of its people and their openness to hosting tourists, but it got a pretty lousy score for its port of entry.
Sydney and Melbourne both ranked well below New York City (18), which has previously been named America's rudest city! How rude...
Melbourne also ranked lower than Paris (65), a city that's always had a reputation of being rude to tourists... nice.
Cities where an anti-tourist backlash have been gaining momentum are ranked lower on the list. They include Amsterdam (52), Rome (71), Reykjavik (72), Venice (77) and Barcelona (78).
But hey, at least a couple of Australian cities made the top 100 list! That's something to be proud of, surely?
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