Travellers from across the globe have voted London the number one place to visit while in the UK. The capital also made it into the list of top ten best places in the world to visit. The poll was conducted by online travel giant TripAdvisor. The second most desirable place to visit in Britain was Edinburgh, with Bath coming in third, Cambridge fourth and Oxford fifth.

London was also voted third best place to visit in Europe behind Paris, which took first place and Rome in second. As far as the rankings for best places in the world to visit were concerned, London came in at a respectable eighth place just ahead of Scottish capital Edinburgh which scooped ninth.

First place in the world rankings went to Cape Town followed by Sydney and Peru’s Machu Picchu. Emma Boyle, spokeswoman for TripAdvisor, said London and Edinburgh’s rankings were extremely encouraging, especially as tourism is such an important part of the UK’s economy. She added London’s high rankings were particularly pleasing because of the amount of effort that has been put into preparing the capital for next year’s Olympic Games.

Although Scotland failed to make the cut in the list of world destinations, in the list of places to visit in the UK Inverness took eighth place and St Andrews ninth.

VisitScotland’s chairman, Mike Cantlay, said the rankings were great news for Scotland, adding that it would not be a surprise for anyone who had visited Edinburgh to see it ranked so highly.