Bali world's 4th most popular spot

JAKARTA (JP): Bali, Indonesia's most popular tourist destination, stands as the world's fourth best island, according to the United States' Conde Nast Traveler monthly magazine.

In its's September issue, the magazine's Annual Readers Choice Awards ranked Bali fourth after Hawaii's Maui, Bermuda in the Pacific Ocean and Kauai, another Hawaiian island.

The island is also named the fourth friendliest island.

The magazine lists Bali's Amandari resort at the top of readers' approval ratings, winning 93.7 percent of readers' approval, among 51 hotels, 38 resorts, six cruise liners, three spas, one city and one island in the world.

This automatically places the legendary resort among the top 10 Asian-African resorts.

The 29-villa Amandari, sitting atop a cliff in Ubud, Bali, is one of four hotels in Indonesia run by Aman Resorts of Hong Kong. It has been nominated one of the best hotels in the world by other publications such as the United States' Travel and Leisure monthly magazine.

Four other resorts in Bali are among the top 10 Asian-African resorts.

They are the Four Seasons at third place, the Grand Hyatt Bali at fourth, the Sheraton Lagoon Nusa Dua Beach Resort at sixth, and Oberoi Bali at eighth.

The Conde Nast Traveler, the third most-read travel magazine in the United States, has a circulation of 894,000 and is read by about 2.79 million readers.

The annual readers choice awards came from 36,929 opinions entered since last March. (das)