News24

SA voted top dream destination

2013-05-09 14:56

London - South Africa has beaten six other sought after world destinations to take the coveted top spot in travel-related social network, Wayn's recent dream destination competition.

Up against six other sought after destinations - Brazil, India, Dubai, Fiji, Turkey and Indonesia - South Africa managed to garner more than 15 300 votes from all over the world. 

Brazil scooped up the second position, while Dubai came in at a very close third. 

Jerome Touze, co-founder and CRO of WAYN said: "All seven countries and cities nominated were extremely worthy contenders and dream destinations in their own right. The immense popularity of South Africa as a tourist destination has been reinforced by this competition, and interestingly the activity we are seeing correlates with the recent announcement by President Jaco Zuma that the amount of foreign visitors to South Africa has grown by 300% to 13.5 million visitors, 9.2 million of which were tourists.

It is also fascinating to note the strong interest coming from Asia, and particular India, which is one of South Africa's BRICS partners. Out of the 408,000 fans of South Africa on WAYN, there are now over 108,000 fans from India alone"

In total 78 000 votes were counted for all seven of the destinations. The nominated destinations, both cities and countries, were selected through a combination of market research data and tracking user engagement on WAYN.com. WAYN built an exclusive microsite for the competition and offered members who voted the chance to win an iPad.

Touze added "We are delighted by the phenomenal response from our members, the total number of people who voted exceeded our expectations and offers invaluable intel on where our members want to go. We are planning to build on the success of this campaign over the next year by offering more leading award recognitions for the travel and tourism industry"

Thulani Nzima, Chief Executive Officer, South African Tourism said: "We are privileged to live in an incredible country, a land of spectacular wildlife, awe-inspiring adventure and unique heritage and culture. It is home to warm, welcoming people, eager to share it with travellers from around the world. We are already touched by the hundreds of thousands of friends our destination has made on the WAYN.com platform and we are delighted with this accolade, which we hope will make more people's dreams of visiting South Africa a reality."