World-beating Quality
South Africa stood out as one of the hottest destinations in the 2004 World's Best Awards survey by international travel magazine Travel & Leisure, sweeping the world's best hotels category with five of the 10 highest rated properties in the world. Other hotels in the country ranked at numbers 13, 46, 49, 50, 61 and 74, giving South Africa more top 100 hotels than any country except the United States. South Africa also took the top three tour operator and safari outfitter spots, and weighed in with the fifth highest rated city in the world.
Cape Town was voted the best city in Africa and the Middle East and the fifth best city overall for the second year running. Sydney topped the list, followed by Rome, Florence and Bangkok. South African operators Micato Safaris, Wilderness Safaris and Big Five Tours and Expeditions took the top three places in the list of the world's best tour operators and safari outfitters.
The World's Best Awards survey, now in its ninth year, recognises the favourite hotels, cities, islands, tour operators, airlines, cruise lines and car rental agencies of the readers of the world's largest circulation travel magazine. The results were based on over 425 000 reader evaluations, making the survey one of the most comprehensive and definitive available. "The World's Best Awards always provide significant insights into where our singularly well-travelled readers are heading, and, even, their attitudes toward the world", said Travel & Leisure editor-in-chief Nancy Novogrod.
Novogrod said the fact that six of the highest rated hotels for 2004 were in Africa reflected "an enormous shift in interest towards that continent".
5 Western Cape Hotels in the World's Best 100
World-beating Affordability
South Africa is one of the most affordable holiday destinations in the world. The findings come from the annual American Express Foreign Exchange Holiday Cost of Living Index, which compares prices in the world's top 12 holiday destinations for 13 ‘shopping basket’ items. South Africa ranked the cheapest on five of the 14 shopping items surveyed on making it the country with the highest number of the cheapest items. The country also doesn't have a product ranked most expensive on all the 14 items listed.
Italy, previously thought to be one of Europe's more expensive resort areas, proved cheapest of the six euro zone countries surveyed and the only one where costs fell compared with last year. Using information researched by national tourist boards for each of the 12 countries surveyed, Amex found that prices varied by around £90 for the same 13 items. The cheapest, with a shopping bill of just £65.70, was Thailand - 6% below 2004 costs. South Africa was the next cheapest with a shopping bill of £67.68. The holiday cost of living bill dropped significantly in the two other long haul destinations surveyed – Australia and the US. Prices in Australia dropped by around 20%, while in the US costs were down by 9% in addition to the previous year's drop of 24%. Italy's shopping basket total dropped to £73.96 (-9%) in contrast with Spain, Portugal, Greece, France and Ireland. Costs rose in each of these, most noticeably in Spain and Ireland where the bill grew by around 26% each. Amex foreign exchange senior vice president Brendan Walsh said: “As was the case last year, the 2005 ‘Cost of Living’ chart demonstrates clearly that one currency does not mean one price.