Paris Named VroomVroomVroom Destination Battle Champion

Last month, VroomVroomVroom held its biggest contest ever, with a prize pack valued at around $1,000 including an iPad Mini, a GoPro camera, and Philips headphones! With no purchase necessary & open to anyone worldwide, the pack was won by Kerren Hutchison of Dubbo, New South Wales, Australia.

Tied into the drawing was our first-ever Destination Battle, where we asked our followers on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) to choose the most attractive world city that you would love to visit!

Here now is a brief look back at the 32-city tournament, and the shocking upsets that stunned many of our customers as well as many of our car rental experts here at VroomVroomVroom!

In the first round, 32 popular & beautiful cities around the world were paired off and the simple question was, “Where would you rather…?” These matchups included the very first Destination Battle, in which the USA’s Honolulu, Hawaii triumphed over Queenstown, New Zealand. Moscow then survived a match against Dubai, and the tournament was well under way…

Here are the 16 first-round matches…

Honolulu or Queenstown, Moscow or Dubai, Rome or New York, Sydney or Venice, Barcelona or Brisbane, Agra or St. Petersburg, Edinburgh or Montreal, Cape Town or Rio De Janeiro, Cairo or Melbourne, Beijing or Gold Coast, Hong Kong or Niagara Falls, Paris or London, Toronto or Orlando, San Francisco or Auckland, Los Angeles or Rotorua, Las Vegas or Bern

…and here’s what happened when you voted!

The marquee matchup of Round 1 saw Paris defeat London. Melbourne and Gold Coast, 2 Australian cities, advanced to the next round, while 2 others were shown the door early along with 2 New Zealand cities. Perhaps the biggest surprises were the early eliminations of America’s New York City (including its famed Broadway) and the UK’s London. Also a bit surprising was Orlando’s inability to overcome Toronto, despite O-town being home to “The Mouse” — The Walt Disney World Resort — and other popular theme parks.

In Knockout Round 2 (a.k.a. The Sweet 16 Cities), the voting remained heavy — and each daily answer equalled another entry in the prize drawing — as our Facebook commenters were asked “Moscow or Honolulu?” and Italy fans had to pick “Rome or Venice?” In other matches, Barcelona and St. Petersburg, Montreal and Rio, Melbourne and San Francisco, Toronto and Paris, Niagara Falls and Gold Coast, and Los Angeles and Bern were contested.

People on Facebook stopped watching cute videos of kittens long enough to choose ‘Frisco over Melbourne and Niagara over Gold Coast, making it almost an all-Europe & North America Knockout Round 3, with Rio hanging in there & representing South America proudly in this World Cup Summer!

Round 3 asked Honolulu or Venice, Barcelona or Rio, Niagara Falls or Bern, and San Francisco or Paris?

Perhaps a bit of a surprise came when votes for Venice outweighed those for Honolulu, but the beautiful & historic cities of Paris, Bern and Barcelona making it through to the semi-finals were fairly expected.

By the Semi-Final Knockout Round (a.k.a. The Final 4 Destinations), our car rental experts and the Marketing department had kind of wondered if people would still be rabidly interested in voting. We need not have worried! The “Paris or Venice” Destination Battle received almost a hundred voters’ comments, with Paris narrowly advancing to the Finals with about 53% of the votes. “Barcelona or Bern” was an epic win for the Spaniards, as Barcelona earned 2 out of every 3 votes.

The Destination Battle on July 1 pitted Barcelona against Paris, France, in a winner-takes-bragging-rights-only Final Battle. In the end, it was Paris in a runaway victory, taking 2/3 of over 80 votes … which did include a few comments for Rome, since we accidentally had an aerial photograph of Vatican City in our Facebook graphic instead of Barcelona!

In the end, we all had a good time witnessing the tournament unfold and finding out which world cities are the most popular with online car rental (and contest) buffs. We hope you had fun, and we also advise you to keep an eye on our Facebook and Twitter feeds, as well as the Car Rental Blog, to find out when our next big prize giveaway will occur!

Our deepest THANK YOU to everyone who voted, Liked, Commented, Subscribed or otherwise Followed us on social media! VroomVroomVroom appreciates each & every one of you. And the next time you’re in Paris, Barcelona, Honolulu, Rio, Brisbane, or Adelaide, remember that VroomVroomVroom is the only site you’ll ever need to book a great, low rate on car hire!

Jason Dickson is a VroomVroomVroom Content Writer and a car rental expert from America. He was pulling for Orlando, but now suspects that everyone on the Internet hates Disney because they bought “Star Wars”.