Cliffs Of Moher Misses Out In New7Wonders Vote

Business & Finance - Tourism

Monday, 14 November 2011 10:40

Written by Conor Joyce

The Cliffs of Moher has missed out on being named one of the New7Wonders of Nature. 

Following a tireless two-year campaign that saw the County Clare visitor attraction beat off competition from thousands of other sites to be among 28 shortlistees in the contest.  The Cliffs of Moher vote, which had gained significant momentum in the final weeks of the campaign, was not sufficient to overtake the front runners past the post.

The winning sites are (in alphabetical order): Amazon, Halong Bay, Iguazu Falls, Jeju Island, Komodo, Puerto Princesa Underground River, Table Mountain.

The Grand Canyon and Great Barrier Reef also missed out on a Top 14 spot. 

Speaking from the County Clare landmark earlier, Director of the Cliffs of Moher Visitor Experience, Katherine Webster congratulated the front runners and thanked all those who had supported the Cliffs campaign over the four years of the contest. 

“Supporters included public figures who endorsed the campaign, state agencies who promoted it nationally and globally, members of the national and local media who gave considerable coverage to the contest and members of the local tourism industry who put a considerable amount of work and resource into promoting the Cliffs position. We are currently working on further enhancing the overall tourist product and look forward to continuing to welcome visitors to the Cliffs of Moher to what is one of the natural wonders of the world.”

Mayor of Clare, Councillor Pat Hayes had this to say “All of us in County Clare know that the Cliffs of Moher is a special place and this campaign has put the cliffs of Moher on the “must see” list of many potential visitors to Ireland. The campaign has resulted in excellent exposure for the Cliffs, for County Clare and for the West of Ireland.  The Cliffs involvement in the contest has already benefited the local tourism economy.  Of course, we’re disappointed that the Cliffs of Moher didn’t make it to the final 7 but it was always going to be a huge challenge given the relative sizes of the population versus some of the successful candidates.  More people than ever have heard of the Cliffs of Moher now and we will certainly look forward to welcoming them to County Clare in the years ahead.”

The New 7 Wonders of Nature contest was organised by the Swiss non-profit New 7 Wonders Foundation, an organisation who in 2007 completed a previous campaign to choose the New 7 manmade Wonders of the world which saw over 100 million votes cast.  They had previously estimated that the current campaign would see one billion votes cast.  The foundation have announced plans to release verified voting tallies in the coming days and they are already planning for their next voting campaign – New 7 Wonders Cities.