LONDON: The UAE’s iconic Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi has been ranked as one of the highest-rated free tourist attractions in Asia, according to a recent study.
US vacation rentals and property management company Casago went in search of the best free attractions across the US and the world, and the team analyzed publicly available Tripadvisor reviews, identifying the attractions with the most five-star ratings.
Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque placed fifth in the rankings with 86 percent five-star reviews, while the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque in Oman’s capital of Muscat came in 10th with 80.54 percent.
Morocco claimed three top attractions among the highest rated in Africa, including the Chefchaouen Medina which came in second with 76.40 percent of five-star ratings.
The study said: “Chefchaouen’s streets are lined with pretty blue houses, a sight deemed a ‘photographer’s dream’ by one reviewer (who also advises not to visit in the busy summer months).”
The Ksar of Ait-Ben-Haddou came sixth with 67.74 percent five-star ratings, and Medina of Fez ranked ninth with 62.09 percent.
Meanwhile, Egypt’s Blue Hole — a diving location on the southeast Sinai, a few kilometers north of Dahab — ranked the fifth-highest free tourist attraction in Africa with 68.93 percent.
The Arizona-based company gathered the findings by locating the “things to do” page for every country on Tripadvisor and selecting the “free entry” filter.
It pulled the first five pages of attractions ranked by “traveler favorites” and then calculated the percentage of five-star, or “excellent,” reviews for each attraction by country.
Casago then ranked attractions by the percentage of five-star reviews to isolate the highest-rated attractions by country and worldwide.
