Area Ranks Second in Yahoo! Poll

Myrtle Beach beat out exotic locales such as Waikiki and St. Thomas in a recent online poll of favorite beaches. Conducted by Yahoo! Travel and National Geographic Traveler, the survey of more than 2,200 travelers ranked Myrtle Beach No. 2, behind Miami, Fla.

Panama City, Fla.; Waikiki, Hawaii; Tampa Bay, Fla.; St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands; Key West, Fla.; Kaanapali, Hawaii; St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands; and Naples, Fla., rounded out the top ten.

According to the survey, beach goers rated cleanliness, scenery, climate, water temperature, and romance as the most important qualities in a beach, in that order.

Other accolades the Myrtle Beach area has received in the past year:

• In May, The Travel Channel named Myrtle Beach the nation’s Best Family Beach, recognition the chamber immediately included on its advertisements, media kits, and Web site.
• The Internet search engine Lycos.com placed the Myrtle Beach area No. 2 on the 2003 list of summer travel destinations most often researched on the Web site.
• Where to Retire magazine named the Myrtle Beach area one of the 100 Best Retirement Towns in America. Editors traveled to all 50 states to compile the list.
• The Myrtle Beach area is No. 2 on the list of top destinations for summer vacations in the United States, according to the most recent AAA survey.
• The Myrtle Beach area was listed among the top five golf values in the United States in the November 2002 edition of Money magazine.
• The Myrtle Beach area ranked No. 4 on a list of 50 of the most popular motorcoach destinations of the decade in Byways magazine. The publication is produced for the National Motorcoach Network, a marketing group of more than 2,000 motorcoach tour operators.
• The Myrtle Beach area was again named a favorite travel destination by readers of Southern Living magazine. In its fifth annual Readers’ Choice Awards, the area was named the South’s second favorite beach and third most popular family destination. The area was selected from 63 travel destinations, with some 18,000 ballots cast in the survey.
• The Myrtle Beach area was among the Top 10 domestic destinations that bankers planned to visit during 2002-2003, according to a survey conducted for the new BankTravel Membership Directory.

Results of the Yahoo! survey are posted on the Internet directory’s Web site at http://travel.yahoo.com/beaches, where video clips of the top three beach destinations can be viewed. Survey results can also be found in the July issue of National Geographic Traveler.