Brits bored by Paris but buoyed by Australia
An AAP report says that a survey by Virgin Travel Insurance has found that British travellers find Paris’ Eiffel Tower and Egypt’s pyramids a bore and much prefer to flock to some of Australia’s top tourist spots.
The Sydney Harbour Bridge, Kings Canyon in the Northern Territory and Broome’s Cable Beach have all made it into a top 10 list of the best foreign tourist spots for British tourists, with the Brits are impressed with what Australia has to offer, but left yawning by some of the world’s most popular attractions.
Two of Paris’ renowned sites – the Eiffel Tower and the display of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa at the Louvre – were rated the least impressive foreign sightseeing spots for British travellers.
New York’s bustling Times Square and Statue of Liberty, the famous street of Las Ramblas in Barcelona, the White House in Washington DC, Egypt’s historic pyramids and Rome’s romantic Spanish Steps also got the thumbs down.
Holidaying on home soil also proved a major disappointment for many Brits, with England’s prehistoric Stonehenge named the worst tourist spot in the UK.
Some of London’s major attractions – Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, the London Eye and the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain – fared little better, according to the survey of 1,267 British tourists by Virgin Travel Insurance.
Joining the three Australian tourist hotspots in the top 10 foreign attractions was the Grand Canal in Venice, the Treasury monument in Jordan and Kenya’s Masai Mara, with travel writer Felice Hardy saying many British travellers felt ripped-off and stressed when they visited some of the world’s most popular sites.
The threat of being robbed by pickpockets and having to deal with large crowds and expensive entry prices at places such as the Eiffel Tower were frustrating for many, she said. “It’s easy to be swayed by brochures that opt for the mainstream and focus on cliched tourist sights around the world, but many of them are overcrowded and disappointing,” Ms Hardy said.
“Pick carefully and don’t always go for the obvious – natural phenomena are usually more exciting than the man-made, and can be wonderfully free of tourists.”
Report by The Mole
John Alwyn-Jones
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