In a recent poll done by the market research company Ipsos, Abu Dhabi was named fourth most favorite city by residents in 24 countries...and it has nothing to do with the cats.
The research respondents were given a list of 48 countries and asked about which countries they preferred to do business in, live in or visit. While the best city to do business in was New York and the best place to visit was Paris, the best place to live in overall was Zurich.
Twenty-two percent of those polled chose Abu Dhabi as the best place to do business while 14% chose it to live in and only 11% chose it as their favorite place to visit.
Another area measured were the best cities that each individual country chose. For example, Abu Dhabi consistently placed in the top 10 of all categories, business, living and visiting for Australians and Brazilians while it did not make any top 10 lists for the country of China or Korea. The highest ranking of Abu Dhabi came from Saudi Arabia.
The study also took into consideration the ages of their respondents. Abu Dhabi ranked third in the category of doing business by both age groups, under and over age 35.
On a financial note, Abu Dhabi ranked 67th overall in Mercer's 2011 Cost of Living survey which may reflect why more business and visiting is done over actually living in the city.
