GEORGE TOWN: Penang's famed Penang Hill has been listed among the Top 100 tourist traps worldwide.
It came in ninth in a list compiled by USA Today, an American daily newspaper.
Eight of the top 10 tourist traps in the world are in the US while another two ae in Rovaniemi and Santa Claus Village in Lapland, Finland.
According to its authors Glen Luke Flanagan and Robin Saks Frankel, the list is to help travelers avoid a case of destination letdown.
They turned to the treasure trove of data found in online reviews that could help savvy travelers make the most of their vacation planning.
In July 2023, they analysed 23.2 million Google reviews of the 500 most popular tourist attractions in the world, spanning 65 countries in six continents.
For each attraction, they asked a simple question: How frequently do the reviews mention the terms "tourist trap," "overrated" or "expensive"?
According to their key findings, Penang Hill is the top tourist trap in Asia.
The Four Corners Monument (in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah) is the No 1 tourist trap in the world while the Blue Lagoon in Iceland is the top tourist trap in Europe.
Commenting on the USA Today report, state Tourism and Creative Economy Committee chairman Wong Hon Wai said the review had an inherent limitation to it.
"The data collection is monolingual and without other major languages that is used in the region such as Bahasa Malaysia, Mandarin, Tamil, Arabic and others.
"The bad reviews are about two dozen and it does not take into considerations the many other good reviews about Penang Hill which has far more numbers than the bad ones," he said.
Wong said since 1923, 47 million visitors had visited Penang Hill, or more than one million annual visitors.
He said many of them were returning visitors which showed that they were attracted to the charm of Penang Hill.
"The numbers of visitors speaks for itself.
"Having said that, the Penang government will always look for improvement and a new cable car project is already in the pipeline.
"This will give tourists a new experience in the future," he added.