Cape Town among big four

Cape Town has again been named the fourth-best city in the world - after Bangkok, Istanbul and Florence - by Travel + Leisure.

Sydney, New York and Hong Kong failed to make the cut for the popular travel website's top 10 this year.

These famous big cities had to make way for Barcelona , Chiang Mai and Charleston in South Carolina .

A questionnaire was made available to readers from December 1 last year to April 1 this year.

Respondents were then screened by Travel + Leisure and any responses from identified travel industry professionals were removed from the final tally.

Respondents were asked to rate various categories, including hotels, sights, restaurants, shopping value and friendliness of people in the cities, airlines, airports, car rental agencies and destination spas.

Six South African hotels made it into the top 100.

Singita in the Kruger National Park was once again voted the best hotel in the country - moving from seventh spot worldwide in 2012 to third place this year.

The other five in the top 100 were Sabi Sabi Private Game Reserve (9), Singita Sabi Sand Kruger National Park (10), Cape Grace in Cape Town (26), Londolozi Game Reserve Kruger National Park (39), and the Saxon Boutique Hotel in Johannesburg, which was ranked 50th after being 33rd last year.

The best hotel? Mombo Camp and little Mombo Camp in the Moremi Game Reserve in Botswana, which scored 96.6 points out of 100.

The top 10 cities are, in descending order: Bangkok in Thailand, Istanbul in Turkey, Florence in Italy, Cape Town, Kyoto in Japan, Rome in Italy, Charleston in South Carolina, US, Barcelona in Spain, Paris in France, and Chiang Mai in Thailand. Johannesburg failed to make the cut.