Edinburgh is the best place to visit in UK, reveals poll

Readers of Conde Nast Traveller magazine voted Edinburgh ahead of runner-up Oxford and last year's winner, London, citing its "culture" and "user-friendliness" as its major plus points.

Edinburgh has made it into the top ten every year since the influential awards began in 1989.

It has also topped the list three times in the past 12 years.

The poll has been won twice by arch-rival Glasgow in recent years. It was placed just fifth this year, behind Liverpool, but rose three places from last year's relatively poor showing.

Two Scottish hotels have also received a major boost after being named in the UK's top ten leisure hotels.

The Ardanaiseig Hotel, on the banks of Loch Awe, in Argyll, scooped third place and Gleneagles, in Perthshire, was named eighth.

The Balmoral Hotel, in Edinburgh, was named the UK's 13th best business hotel - the only one outside of London to rate a mention in the top 15 - while Gleneagles was said to have the best spa facilities in the UK.

The best city award for Edinburgh is the latest in a string of plaudits for the capital, which was named one of the world's best cities by another travel magazine, Wanderlust, two years ago.

Earlier this year it emerged Edinburgh was the only UK city to feature in a TripAdvisor poll of the top 25 favourite places to visit in the world.

Readers of Conde Nast were asked to score each city out of a maximum of 100 according to criteria such as service, culture and value for money. Edinburgh City Council leader Jenny Dawe said: "This result is great news for the city and confirms what we all know: Edinburgh is a great place in which to visit, invest, live, work and study.

"The city truly has the best of everything; historic buildings and great atmosphere, a vibrant leisure and retail offering, abundant green space, outstanding schools and universities -the list goes on. It is little wonder that people continue to think of Edinburgh as a must-visit location."

Kenneth Wardrop, chief executive of Destination Edinburgh Marketing Alliance, the city's promotional body, said: "Not only has Edinburgh been highly commended by the Conde Nast Readers Travel Awards, but we were recently awarded the second spot in Britain's best university cities by MSN Travel and the award as 'best small city of the future for inward investment' by fDi magazine."

Peter Webster, general manager at The Ardanaiseig Hotel, which he took over eight years ago, said: "I'm completely gobsmacked. I had absolutely no idea we were in the running and it's great news for us, considering we are pretty much in the middle of nowhere around 30 miles from Oban."