Lonely Planet released its 2013 traveller’s choice destinations, based on a survey of 3,000 of their Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Thorntree fans. The results were revealing:
- Canada didn’t even crack the overall top 20 destinations. Half of the destinations were Asian, and both Australia and New Zealand made the top five.
- The big winners? Bhutan, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Thailand, and India.
- Canada made it into only two categories – it came in ninth in the Nature category. The winners here? Costa Rica, Iceland, New Zealand, Bhutan, and Australia. So even though we feel we “own” nature, and certainly have lots of it, travellers don’t see us as the top destination to go for nature.
- Canada also came in fourth for safety.
- We didn’t make it to the top 10 in the adventure category.
- Bhutan won the prize as best overall destination, and made it into the top 10 in 8 out of 16 criteria. Interesting, as it is not cheap to travel there.
While this survey only sampled a certain type of traveller, it does show that despite our great national tourism brand, we have some work to do when it comes to marketing our country.
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