Rio de Janeiro slipped past Vienna with a single vote, Valetta past Kyoto with 3, and Edinburgh defeats Ljubljana despite a strong campaign by the Slovenians in The Best City To Visit 2012 Second Round. And thanks to a posting in one of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s largest websites and corresponding Facebook page, Sarajevo defeated Vernazza by 1,600 votes. Yet if there’s one trend I’ve seen in this contest over the years, it’s that big votes in one round don’t correspond to subsequent ones. Early votes, consistent votes, and rallying the folks already promoting your city are solid strategies.
This group of 32 cities will be 16 by next Tuesday. You have until this Sunday, March 11th 11:30am US EST to vote for your favorites and decide the cities that advance on to the top prize. Results may not appear after you vote so check back throughout the day and I’ll post updates in the comments below. Those of you reading through email and RSS will have to click-through to this page to vote. Good luck!
Please keep in mind the final votes for any poll aren’t final until they’re verified by my diligent verification team. By Monday, March 12th there will be a sweet 16 of cities left ready for the next round that comes up quickly next Tuesday, March 13th. Best of luck everyone!
Voted! Although it was not that easy with so many wonderful cities to choose from but hey, that’s what makes this competition so great 🙂 May the best city win!
No round is easy but like you say, there can only be one winner!
Voted! Although I am a little disappointed: if this list is reflective of people’s general ideas about awesome places to go to, then it is quite sad that European cities make more than half of this list. I have nothing against Europe, but really, there’s a whole wide world outside of it waiting to be discovered!
Thanks for voting! It is a Europe-heavy group left, although the non-European cities in the race are very strong contenders to advance far in my opinion.
I’ll be writing later about the trends of this contest but I think what the European cities (and those nominating and supporting them) have in this year’s tournament is an important strong vote in the preliminary round. Not only did many of these 32 skip the first round; they tend to have name recognition. An early strong vote is key in the early rounds for lesser-known cities to overcome the name recognition. Once a city gets to the round of 32 or 16 it gets noticed in the voting and being an ‘underdog’ becomes an advantage. Not so in the earlier rounds I’ve found. Many of the other cities are also very organized about recruiting votes and getting help from those already promoting a city (e.g. tourism boards, etc.).
That said, 11 of the next 16 to advance could be non-Europe which would be quite a swing!
The mother of all battles of this round: Granada v Barcelona!
And the winner will have (probably) to face one of the favorite ones: Fethiye.
Seville against all-mighty Sarajevo!
Tough rounds for Spain!
A very tough round for Spain’s 4 teams! And Granada vs. Barcelona, one will not go on. Right now, as it has since the voting began, they are tied. I think it will come down to the very end…
Seville also has a 10% lead on Sarajevo which has been very, very quiet so far…
So Seville is winning,
it would be soooo nice to have a Granada v Seville! Taking into account the rivalry among these two Andalusian cities, it would be an awesome battle!
So go Seville go!
I love the rivalry! Also, if you look above you’ll see how the Spanish battle is going… 🙂 It’s just been updated.
Seems like Sarajevo will beat Seville 🙂
It is looking very bad for Seville at the moment!
I had the chance to visit the two cities, Seville is a beautiful city but, Sarajevo is a magic, I recommend to everyone to discover.
I think the votes have caught many people’s attention; depending on how the tournament goes I may be going sooner than later!
This morning Granada was 60 votes ahead and now 100 behind!! WTF!! noooo!!!!
There have been thousands of new votes in this round very recently, many cities are shifting but there’s still time!
So what my city is eliminated. I can & will still vote for other favourite cities.
A great attitude to have and I think win or lose it’s fun to enter and play on!
voted!!!
Glad to hear it, good luck to the cities you’re supporting!
i like the results i am seeing so far!
can’t wait to see results for cairo!
and for Barcelona Vs Granada! 😀 that’s a tight one 😀
🙂 Cairo should be appearing later today or early tomorrow but will need to mount a serious campaign to catch the Portuguese who have an early strong lead…
Granada vs. Barcelona too, wow what a race it will be to watch when the first results are up. Lots of good ones going on!
So much better than basketball! And kind of like the World Cup, but without all the vuvuzelas (okay, that’s a little 2010 but still).
I’m glad you’re enjoying it too, it is so much fun to run this contest each year!
Oh, and for some vuvzela action to the Best City Tournament:
http://vuvuzela-time.co.uk/foxnomad.com/2012/03/09/the-best-city-to-visit-travel-tournament-2012-round-of-32
😀
Okay, that made my day. 🙂
Once again Guimarães makes me really proud 🙂 Even though it is still early, we have good chances to make it through next stage 🙂
Yes, it is a good round for Guimarães, looking very strong to win this round and advance! Good luck! I must say the Portuguese support for their cities has been very impressive again!
The inhabitants of Guimarães are known for their passion for the city of Guimarães. We are proud to have been the birthplace of the 1st King of Portugal.
GO, GO SARAJEVO!
Nice greetings from Sarajevo to all voters.
More enthusiastic support from Sarajevo! It’s going very, very well I think we’ll see you in the next round of Sweet 16…
A quick update: Sarajevo is taking a STRONG lead on Seville and many of the other races are heating up. Cairo is gaining on Guimarães and Barcelona taking it to a near tie with Granada. Also, Rio is still very close to Florence and San Francisco is catching up to Porto.
I’ll keep updating as results may appear and disappear above throughout the day.
GO SARAJEVO !! Next stop => Rome x)
Good luck! But still many hours to go for Sydney too! Either way, it will be an excellent match up!
Sarajevo might win this battle, but against Rome… hm, it’s going to be heavy struggle 🙂 I voted for all those beautiful cities … Istanbul, Cairo, Rome, Prague, Granada, Fethiye, Marrakesh, Dubrovnik… it’ s hard choice 🙂
Each round only gets harder! Thank you for voting!
I love this concept, what a cool idea! Looking forward to checking out the crowd favorites.
Thanks Liz! Tuesday the Sweet 16 begins, let’s see who advances through the week!
Roma vs Sarajevo
Totti will not help much against Sarajevo 🙂 Forza Sarajevo !
good luck
The next round begins tomorrow, it will be fun to watch. Good luck!
I think our days in this competition are numbered! 🙂 All good fun though. We’re thinking and rallying – strategy is needed.
You never know! At this stage, anyone can win 🙂
I’ll have a post about this eventually – but definitely what’s working for many of the cities up to this point is rallying the help of those who already are promoting a destination or have economic incentive to do so. Tourism boards, airlines, culture organizations are all good places to help spread the word. I suspect many of the races will stay close to the very end and it could be the difference. The Spanish are rallying too and will be interesting to see when things kick off again tomorrow.
Good luck!