Myrtle Beach Tourism Awards

The readers of Endless Vacation Magazine voted Myrtle Beach, SC #6 on their list of Best Beaches and #1 Beach Destination for People-Watching.
The Travel Channel has named Myrtle Beach one of America’s Best Beaches for 2003-2004. Earning 18 out of a possible 20 stars, Myrtle Beach was singled out as the Best Family Beach. A review on The Travel Channel’s Web site, discovery.com, states that “Myrtle Beach is the East Coast’s ultimate vacation hub.” Along with the other nine winners, the Myrtle Beach area will be showcased throughout the coming year on The Travel Channel’s America’s Best Beaches program and on the Web site.
Myrtle Beach beat out exotic locales such as Waikiki and St. Thomas in a recent online pole of favorite beaches conducted by Yahoo! Travel and National Geographic Traveler magazine. The survey of more than 2,200 travelers ranked Myrtle Beach No. 2 of a list of Top 10 Beaches. Results of the survey and video highlights are posted on Yahoo!’s Web site and were published in National Geographic Traveler. The qualities most important to beachgoers were cleanliness, scenery, climate, water temperature, and romance, in that order.
The Internet search engine Lycos.com places the Myrtle Beach area No. 2 on the 2003 list of summer travel destinations most often researched on the Web site. The Grand Strand is flanked by Walt Disney World at No. 1 and Disney Land at No. 3.
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. Others in the top five were Branson, Mo. (1), Washington, D.C. (2), Nashville, Tenn. (3), and New York City (5).
The Myrtle Beach area has again been 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. In addition, the Sea Captain’s House was second favorite seafood restaurant, and Brookgreen Gardens was second favorite public garden.
The Myrtle Beach area had the second highest percentage of travel-related jobs in the country in 2000, according to a report that appeared in the Wall Street Journal in August 2001. The top three spots for travel-related jobs are Atlantic City, N.J. (34.7), the Myrtle Beach area (31.2), and Las Vegas (29.9).