Bangkok Voted Number 1 City in Asia in Condé Nast Traveler’s Readers’ Choice Awards

Thailand has once again been recognized as a premier travel destination in the 25th Condé Nast Traveler’s annual Readers’ Choice Awards, one of the highest accolades in the industry. This year’s awards reflect the opinions of a record 46,476 readers who participated in the survey, and who honored the Land of Smiles in several categories including the world’s top cities and the top cities, best islands, and favorite resorts in Asia.

Judged on factors such as Shopping, Ambience and Friendliness, Bangkok came in with a #4 ranking on the Top Cities in the World list, one spot behind Florence, Italy, and ahead of other world-class destinations like Vancouver, Sydney and Buenos Aires. As for the Top Cities in Asia, Condé Nast’s readers rated Bangkok #1 – edging out Hong Kong and Kyoto, who took 1st place in the 2011 survey – giving it high marks for its Restaurants, Lodging and Culture. Readers also heaped praise on Northern Thailand’s largest city and cultural centre, Chiang Mai, which earned the #5 spot in Asia sandwiched between Singapore and Ubud, one of Bali’s major arts and culture centres, and ahead of Tokyo and Shanghai.

Moving from the cities to the sea, Thailand continued to score high marks. In the Top 10 Islands in Asia category, it rang in with two of the top five selections once again. Phuket, ranked #2 on the list behind this year’s winner Bali, was favored for its beautiful beaches (scoring second-highest in Asia on that criteria behind only Lombok, Indonesia) and its wealth of activities; and Koh Samui, the #5 island in Asia, was buoyed by its lovely scenery and its diversity of lodging options and placed just a fraction of a point behind fourth-place Langkawi, Malaysia and one spot ahead of Hokkaido, Japan. Others making the list include Philippines favorites Luzon, Cebu and Mindanao, and Malaysian Borneo.

New Flights from Pattaya to Siem Reap and Chumphon

A relatively new airline in Thailand is trying to shake up the industry by taking their passengers to places where other airlines don’t want to go. Using a small Dornia 228, Solar Air only has to find 18 passengers to fill their aircraft. Captain Jiratid Ong-Aree announced at a press conference this weekend that they will be launching two new routes on 9th November 2012. These will take off from U-Tapao International Airport which is only half an hour away from Pattaya. They were joined by Maxx Royal Tour who will provide package holidays on these new routes and others coming soon.

The first route is to the popular tourist attraction of Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Normally you would have to fly by Bangkok Airways to get to Siem Reap. But Solar Air manages to do this by flying via Pattaya. This is obviously good news for expats living in Pattaya as well as holidaymakers who don’t want to travel all the way to Bangkok just to fly to Cambodia. Solar Air will fly four days a week, on Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The flight will leave Pattaya at 10 a.m. and arrive in Siem Reap one hour later. They have also started a 25-minute flight between Bangkok’s Don Mueang and Pattaya’s U-Tapao. The Siem Reap trip is 11,800 Baht return (not including airport taxes) and the Pattaya-Bangkok trip is 1,200 Baht one way (not incl. airport taxes).

The other new route to open soon is from Pattaya to Chumphon with boat transfers to the islands of Koh Tao and Samui. It is already possible to do this from Bangkok, but this is something new for Pattaya. In the past, people would have to transfer to Don Mueang Airport to fly to Chumphon or take a bus to Bangkok and then change to another to Samui. By flying straight from Pattaya to Chumphon tourists can save a lot of time. Repeat tourists to Pattaya who want to try something different will be able to do a three day side trip to a small island like Koh Tao. Another new route due to start in 2012 will be from Pattaya to Kanchanaburi. Again this will save tourists a lot of time making it easier to do as a day trip. The main market for these new routes are of course the Russians as well as the Chinese.