Albuquerque, NM -- The USA TODAY Travel Media Group has announced the first round of results in the 2013 10Best Readers' Choice Travel Awards. More than 24,000 votes were cast for Best Iconic American Food and Albuquerque's green chile sauce emerged the winner.
Votes were cast over a four-week period at www.10best.com and consumers had 20 nominees to choose from but Albuquerque's green chile sauce grabbed the top spot. Following closely, in second, crabs from Baltimore and in third, fried cheese curds from Wisconsin.
The full top 10 for Best Iconic American Food includes:
- Albuquerque – Green Chile Sauce
- Baltimore – Maryland Crabs
- Wisconsin – Fried Cheese Curds
- Memphis – Pulled Pork
- Philadelphia – Philly Cheese Steak
- Charleston – Shrimp and Grits
- Chicago – Italian Beef Sandwich
- Indianapolis – Pork Tenderloin Sandwich
- New Orleans – Boiled Crawfish
- Key West – Key Lime Pie
"We have been thrilled with the voter response to our Readers' Choice Travel Awards. Nearly a hundred thousand votes have been cast so far and we've even had at least one mayor and one governor from around the country rallying their citizens to vote for what's special about their region – from food to water parks. We look forward to engaging even more consumers in the coming weeks as additional categories are announced," said John Peters, president of the USA TODAY Travel Media Group.
Nominees were chosen by a panel of relevant experts, which included a combination of editors from USA TODAY and 10Best.com along with relevant expert contributors and sources.
“We consistently find that our culinary offerings remain a top reason people enjoy visiting Albuquerque and we’re thrilled with this ranking,” said Dale Lockett, President/CEO of the Visit Albuquerque. “Through our engaged social media audience, we were able to spread the word about the Readers' Choice Awards and encourage our fans to vote. They were very excited and definitely catapulted our destination to the top of the Iconic American Food list.”
The 10Best Readers' Choice Travel Award contest launches one new category each week, revealing its 20 nominees. Each category will have a four-week voting period and results will then be announced on www.10best.com. Consumers can vote online for one nominee per category, per day, during each category's four-week period.
10Best.com provides users with original, unbiased, and experiential travel content of top attractions, things to see and do, and restaurants for top destinations in the U.S. and around the world. The core of the site's uniqueness is its team of local travel experts: a well-traveled and well-educated group who are not only experts in their fields - and their cities - but discriminating in their tastes. These local experts live in the city they write about so the content is constantly updated. In 2012, 10Best.com averaged more than 700,000 monthly unique visitors generating approximately 28 million page views. It was acquired by USA TODAY in January of 2013.