Bangkok, Thailand; Chiang Mai, Thailand; Florence, Italy; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; and Rome, Italy are the top five cities overall in Travel + Leisure’s 2010 World’s Best Awards readers’ survey, announced in New York on July 8, 2010.

The Best City Overall, Bangkok, returns to the No. 1 spot, having last held that ranking in 2008.

The top winners in each category were honored at an awards luncheon on July 21 at the new Trump SoHo New York in NYC. A gala event to celebrate the fifteenth annual World’s Best Awards was held at the new Andaz 5th Avenue in New York City that evening.

Nancy Novogrod, editor-in-chief of Travel + Leisure, said: “That the three highest-ranking hotels this year are Oberoi Vanyavilas, a jungle camp on the edge of India’s Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve; Triple Creek Ranch, in Darby, Montana, a haven for comfort-seeking outdoor-adventure travelers; and Fairmont Mara Safari Club, in Kenya’s Masai Mara, speaks volumes. These properties provide distinctive encounters with the natural world, which linger in memory; they are perceived as delivering great value, even when the price-per-day is high. The spirit of exploration also prevailed in the choice of the Galápagos as Best Islands in the World, and of Bangkok as Best City. It is worth noting that our survey took place before the political upheaval in Bangkok began in May, and that the U.S. travel warning has now been lifted."

HOTELS IN THAILAND IN THE TOP 100 WORLD'S BEST IN 2010
THE PENINSULA BANGKOK HOTEL IS AMONG THE TOP 10 WORLD'S BEST.
A total of 4 hotel properties in Thailand are among the Top 100 World's Best Hotels. They are The Peninsula Bangkok, the Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai, the Mandarin Oriental Dhara Dhevi Chiang Mai and Mandarin Oriental Bangkok. The Peninsula Bangkok Hotel ranks 7th place in the Top 10.

Five resort properties in Thailand rank among the Top 15 resorts in Asia. These are the Four Seasons Resort and the Mandarin Oriental Dhara Dhevi in Chiang Mai, Anantara Golden Triangle Resort & Spa in Chiang Rai, the Amanpuri in Phuket and JW Marriott Phuket Resort & Spa, Thailand.

Four city hotels in Bangkok – The Peninsula, The Mandarin Oriental, the Four Seasons Hotel and Le Méridien – rank among the Top 25 city hotels in Asia.

The islands of Koh Samui and Phuket in Thailand are also among the Top 5 islands in Asia.

The 2010 results, including the Top 100 Hotels Overall, Top 50 Resorts in the Continental U.S. and Canada, Top 10 Cities Overall, and Top 10 Domestic Airlines, among other lists, are featured on www.travelandleisure.com/worldsbest now and in Travel + Leisure’s August issue, available on newsstands July 23.*

As part of the 2010 World’s Best Awards report, Travel + Leisure editors also create a 20 to Watch list that highlights standout new properties and companies that they expect will appear on World’s Best Awards lists in years to come. On page 141 of the August issue, there will be a barcode that can be scanned with smart phones to send readers directly to travel deals from each of the 20 to Watch winners.

2010 World’s Best Awards Survey Methodology
A questionnaire developed by the editors of Travel + Leisure, in association with ROI Research Inc., was made available to Travel + Leisure readers at TLWorldsBest.com from December 15, 2009, to March 31, 2010. Readers were invited to participate through Travel + Leisure magazine (January, February, and March issues), and online at TravelandLeisure.com. To protect the integrity of the data, after March 31, 2010, respondents were screened by Travel + Leisure and responses from any identified travel-industry professionals who completed the survey were eliminated from the final tally. The survey website, TLWorldsBest.com, was maintained, monitored, and kept secure by ROI Research Inc., which collected and tabulated the responses and kept them confidential. The scores are indexed averages of responses concerning applicable characteristics. Respondents were asked to rate hotels, islands, destination spas, golf resorts, and rental-car agencies on five characteristics; cities, cruise lines, and tour operators and safari outfitters on six characteristics; and airlines and hotel spas on four characteristics (see below). In the hotel, cruise line, tour operator, airline, and golf resort categories, respondents could also rate additional optional characteristics; these ratings were not included in the final score. For each characteristic, respondents were asked to rate a candidate on a scale of 1 to 5, where “5” means excellent and “1” means poor. Required component ratings were then averaged, creating an overall score. A minimum number of responses was necessary for a candidate to be eligible for inclusion in the World’s Best Awards listings. Some companies were rated in both the cruise line and tour operator and safari outfitter categories, and some properties were rated in both the destination spa and hotel spa categories. In both cases, companies and properties have different scores for each category. These were the categories and characteristics:

	For hotels: rooms/facilities, location, service, restaurants/food, value.
	Hotel types were determined using the number of rooms and suites. Inns have fewer than 40 rooms; resorts have 40 rooms or more. Small city hotels have fewer than 100 rooms; large city hotels have 100 rooms or more. In some regions, inns and resorts and large and small city hotels were grouped together.
	For destination spas: accommodations/ambience, treatments, service, food, value.
	For hotel spas: ambience, treatments, service, value.
	For cities: sights, culture/arts, restaurants/food, people, shopping, value.
	For islands: natural attractions, activities/sights, restaurants/food, people, value.
	For cruise lines: cabins, food, service, itineraries/destinations, activities, value.
	For tour operators and safari outfitters: staff/guides, itineraries/destinations, activities, accommodations, food, value.
	For airlines: cabin comfort, in-flight service, customer service, value. Optional: food.
	For rental-car agencies: vehicle selection, vehicle availability, rental location, service, value.
	For golf resorts: location, course grounds, amenities, service, value.

* Spa winners will be featured in Travel + Leisure’s October 2010 issue.

Source: http://www.travelandleisure.com/worldsbest/press_release