European Consumers Choice is an independent non-profit-making organization established in 2009 in Brussels. Every year our jury and partners in the field of industry, design, tourism and the specialised press, select products on the basis of their originality, innovative features and exceptional qualities. The selected products are tested under everyday conditions by European consumers who assess, evaluate and comment on their functionality, innovative features and design. Companies which receive a 90% rating receive the European Consumer Awards title and are authorised to use the European Consumers Awards logo on all their communications, products, multimedia, websites and company locations; in addition, the European Consumers Choice website features an individual page dedicated to their company including a description of their product and consumer notes and comments. A few months after the establishment of our organisation, our Board of Directors with support from the European Commissioner for Sports and Youth - Androulla Vassiliou - decided to include sports centres as a means to promote sports ethics.
www.europeanconsumerschoice.org
EUROPEAN BEST DESTINATION
2012 In order to encourage European tourism, our organization then developed the concept of “European Best Destination”, thereby giving European Consumers the choice to vote online for their favourite European town and give their reasons for their choice. For the first edition, the Best European Destination selected by European consumers was the city of Lisbon (Portugal), appreciated for its charm and authenticity. Thanks to their award, Lisbon and Copenhagen (2011) were able to communicate and attract attention in a positive way with a press coverage of over 600 articles.
ONLINE VOTING This year is a record year with over 212.000 voters over a three weeks’ period of online voting (212.688 votes, only one possible vote per person based on IP addresses). The information was mainly disseminated via the official tourism websites of the selected cities, newspapers and via Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Flickr. The thousands of exchanges which followed reached a large number of European citizens and gave them the opportunity to pronounce on their favourite destination for 2012. Hotel groups, restaurants, travel agents, airlines and individual, all mobilised their resources to relay the information and bring a maximum of voters to express their choice online. This election of the best european destination started in 2010-2011 with online voting - on our website only - www.europeanconsumerschoice.org, and is now mobilizing all the main social networks. This experiment will be repeated next year with more exchanges, more voters, more activities around the selection of Best European Destination.
20 selected towns were competing for the prestigious title of Best European Destination 2012. Using social networks data, we know that the average age of voters is between 20 and 35 with 52% of women’s votes and 48% of men’s votes. We received 209.286 votes from Europe and 3.402 from outside Europe (North America, South America, Africa, Russia, China…) Only european votes were included in the final results.
With 8.416 votes in 10th place for the best European Destination we have Edinburgh With 8.870 votes in 9th place for the Best European Destination we have Florence With 10.783 votes in 8th place for the Best European Destination we have Lisbon With 11.305 votes in 7th place for the Best European Destination we have Budapest With 12.066 votes in 6th place for the Best European Destination we have Berlin With 14.740 votes in 5th place for the Best European Destination we have Brussels With 14.958 votes in 4th place for the Best European Destination we have Prague With 18.937 votes in 3rd place for the Best European Destination we have Dubrovnik With 21.002 votes in 2nd place for the Best European Destination we have Vienna
With 26.842 votes in first place the winner of the Best European Destination is
Porto! The 61.367 remaining votes refer to the other 10 selected towns.
Voters’ comments about Porto, the 2012 Best European Destination: “The best destination for a complete change.” “People are welcoming, the climate is welcoming and at any time of the year it is the best destination to travel to.” “I often travel in large towns for business but for my holidays I go to Portugal and preferably to Porto which is a splendid town.” “The climate is great and for a northerner like me it is a complete change and the people’s welcome can rarely be found in other cities.” “Portugal in general is truly magnificent, and Porto is Portugal’s pearl ; I travelled there over ten years ago and still have unforgettable memories of it.” “Porto is authentic, no need to stay a long time to be conquered.” “Porto is a city which I recommend to all my friends, people don’t always know much about Portugal and that’s precisely why I think one should go there, there is so much to discover and it is love at first sight.”
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Porto will have the right to use the logo and title of « European Best Destination ». Porto, and the 10 best cities selected by european citizens will feature in our photo reportage and be widely advertised on our website European Consumers Choice. This page will feature the city’s main sites of interest, photos and videos to encourage european citizens to visit the 10 best cities selected. Porto is elected the best European Destination 2012 and wins the title ahead of 19 big european cities. Vienna, Dubrovnik, Prague, Brussels, Berlin, Budapest, Lisbon, Florence and Edinburgh are the next best destinations for a holiday or city-trip in 2012.
We thank all the participants from Tourism Offices, community managers of social networks and the 212.688 voters who have made their choice and influenced the result.
See you in 2012 for our new listings (best European seaside resorts of Europe, best ski resorts, best locations for events in Europe) and in March 2013 for the election of best European destination.
For further information, please contact the travel department for European Consumers Choice.
Your contact: Maximilien Lejeune – Travel Dept Phone : 0032.494.92.02.54 Mail : travel@europeanconsumerschoice.org
European Consumers Choice 20 rue Paul Wemaere 1150 Brussels Belgium www.europeanconsumerschoice.org