As Canadians, we’ve all heard the stereotype about Canadians being friendly. Well now, a new report is proving this to be true.
New data from online language learning platform Preply shows Toronto is the friendliest city in the world for tourists in 2023. Sydney, Australia tied for first place as well.
Both cities received an overall friendliness score of 7.97 out of 10 based on Preply’s Community Spirit Index, according to the report.
This index is a comprehensive ranking of 53 cities worldwide based on their friendliness for visitors.
Preply analyzed six key metrics to determine the friendliest and most welcoming cities:
- Visitor return rate: The percentage of visitors who return to each city after travelling there, saying if the location left a good impression.
- Friendly staff: The percentage of accommodation reviews mentioning ‘friendly’, providing an idea of how welcoming local staff are.
- Community respect: The city’s safety index score, which indicates if it’s a safe environment for both natives and newcomers.
- Acceptance of diversity: The LGBTQ+ equality score in each city, which indicates if this is an accepting and supportive community.
- Happiness: The city’s overall happiness and wellbeing score, according to inhabitants.
- Ease of communicating through a common language: English is the most commonly spoken language in the world, so Preply looked at each city’s English-speaking proficiency score.
“Toronto boasts a very decent visitor return rate of 15%, which means that people who come to Toronto tend to love it so much that they come back again and again,” the report said.
Preply gave Toronto a happiness score of 7.03 out of 10 and a very high LGBTQ+ equality score of 90 out of 100.
Aside from Toronto, Montreal was the only other Canadian city to make the list at number six. The French city had a community respect score of 68.39 out of 100, while Toronto had 57.55.
