French Tourism Officials Announce London's a Better City Than Paris

I know, I know. The headline  sounds likeone from the Onion. But its absolutely true. Recently, the Paris-Ile de France Regional Committee commissioned a survey to explore ways to increase international visitation and the report ended up ranking world cities. And Paris didn't win.

London was seen to be better in all categories from restaurants (sacre bleu!) to transportation to the appeal of its major landmarks. Paris tied with Amsterdaml, though the study was, of course, done before it was announced that the Dutch were going to stop selling pot to tourists (see post below), which might have affected Amsterdam's, er, lure.

Paris lost the most points on its public transportation (old, dirty metro according to the investigators) and the quality of its hotels (small rooms).

This is London's second win (well, third if you count the Olympics) in the world tourism stakes. At the 2010 World Tourism Awards it beat Paris once again, as well as New York City and Sydney for the title of "World's Leading Destination".