panorama destination

panorama destination

Indonesia Named World’s Best Dive Destination
06 November 2017 | Written by Chris Alexander

Indonesia has been named the world’s top location for diving at the DIVE Magazine Travel Awards 2017. The annual awards, voted for by readers of the UK-based publication, determine the best and most popular locations in the world. The top resort and one of the world’s best liveaboards were also attributed to Indonesia in the 2017 awards.

A total of 13,845 votes were counted in the DIVE Magazine awards between May and October 2017. Hundreds of nominated destinations, resorts and liveaboards were narrowed down to the magazine’s illustrious top 25 list in each category.

In the Best Destination category, Indonesia received almost twelve per cent of the total vote, with 1,076 out of a total 9,399 votes cast. According to the magazine, “Indonesia’s 17,000 islands offer diverse habitats and species, from the pelagic visitors and strong currents of Komodo National Park to the tranquil black sands of Lembeh’s muck-diving oddities, and a wide range of everything else in between.”

In the Resort category, the clear winner was Sulawesi’s Siladen Resort and Spa, which received 820 out of a total of 3,117 votes  – nearly twice as many as its closest competitor. Siladen is located in the heart of the Bunaken National Park in northern Sulawesi and has long been famed for its quality diving. Wakatobi in southern Sulawesi also came in third, just ahead of Lembeh Resort from the north of the same Indonesian island.

In the Liveaboard category, Sulawesi’s Pelagian lost out on first place by just a single vote. The winner – Cocos Sea Hunter in Costa Rica – headed a list of liveaboards from all over the world, from Indonesia to the Galápagos and from the Red Sea to the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean. In a hotly contested and highly competitive category, fewer than 20 votes separated third from tenth place in the final standings.

DIVE is the world’s leading scuba magazine. Released quarterly, the publication features reviews of the best new diving gear and focuses on premier diving locations from around the globe. The Dive Travel Awards are confirmed towards the end of each year. This is the second consecutive year Indonesia has been named the world’s best dive destination in the awards.