readers of a US travel magazine.

More than 30,000 subscribers to prestigious Conde Nast Traveler magazine made that choice in the magazine's annual readers' poll. Bermuda was ranked as the third best island in the same survey.

And three local hotels were ranked among the top 50 tropical resorts on the planet.

Over the past year the subscribers sent in their picks of their favourite cities, islands, airlines, hotels and resorts as part of the magazine's seventh annual readers' poll.

According to Traveler, candidates were rated in a variety of categories and rank was determined by the percentage of readers who rated the candidate "excellent'' or "very good''.

The highest possible score in the poll was 100 percent.

The list of top 50 tropical resorts, in which three local hotels were named, was based on such criteria as service, rooms, restaurants/other facilities and location/atmosphere.

The three Bermuda hotels that were chosen were the Southampton Princess with an overall rating of 74.3 percent, the Princess (72.4) and the Elbow Beach Hotel (71.9).

Out of 50, the three resorts ranked 34, 38 and 40 respectively.

"That is indeed an honour for us,'' Mr. Steve Barker, Princess Hotels International's regional vice-president for Bermuda, said in a statement this week. "We are proud that such a high percentage of our resorts were so favourably recognised in this survey.'' On the list of top ten islands in the world, Bermuda came in third overall and an impressive first in the "people'' category.

Bermuda was topped in the overall category by the Hawaiian islands of Maui and Kauai.

The only other survey area that Bermuda earned a mention in was perhaps the most important of all -- the magazine's "top 100'' category of the highest scores recorded. In this category, Bermuda tied for 98th place with the Holland America cruise line and the Westin Resort in Ixtapa, Mexico.