October 31, 2013
Which international city would YOU choose to live, or work, or travel? Geneva? Sydney? Amsterdam? Singapore? Dubai? How about country?
Polls citing different criteria, and presumably targeting different socio-economic groups, are completed each year. Do surveys significantly influence readers, or merely provide colorful reading? Being a frequent global traveler, I find them to be fundamentally arbitrary. Read on …
An online poll called Ipsos’ Top Cities Index conducted in February 2013 by Ipsos MORI, a leading market research company in the UK and Ireland, surveyed 18,147 people ages 16 to 64 from 24 countries asking which cities rank tops in which to work, live and travel combined.
Condẻ Nast Traveler issued its Readers’ Choice Awards for 2013 based upon which cities its travel readers most enjoyed to travel.
Also this year, CBS MoneyWatch listed the 10 Best Economies for Expats. Self-explanatory. 7,000 of the 6.3 million Americans living abroad were surveyed by HSBC.
The Ipsos Index ranked, in order, New York City, London and Paris the top international cities in which to work, live and travel combined. New to the rankings, Abu Dhabi ranked 4th overall. Those polled (which did not include residents of the UAE) were asked to rate a list of 48 cities.
In the business category, Abu Dhabi came in 2nd behind New York City, although New York City topped the World’s Favorite City, Zurich was named Best City in which to Live, and Paris was named Best City to Visit.
Of no surprise, citizens of a particular country tended to vote for a city in their native country, e.g. Germans voted for Berlin, Japanese voted for Tokyo, Istanbul was favored by citizens polled in Turkey, and so forth. Striving to achieve objectivity, the Ipsos Index polled people at random internationally.
The cities which “could do better”, as per the Ipsos Index, were Moscow, Brussels, Madrid, Istanbul and Bangkok. The least popular of the 48 major cities were Budapest, Casablanca, Warsaw, Tehran, and Karachi.
Condẻ Nast Traveler’s Readers’ Choice Awards named San Miguel De Allende as the #1 most enjoyable city to visit followed, in order, by Firenze, Budapest, Salisburgo, Charleston, San Sebastian, Vienna, Rome, Siena and Quebec.
And for countries, CBS MoneyWatch named Switzerland as the Best Economy for Expats followed, in order, by China, Qatar, Thailand, Cayman Islands, Indonesia, Germany, Oman, Singapore, Turkey.
StephenCBurton 