London shunned in landmark survey

Big Ben only came 11th

No London landmarks feature in a top 10 list of the world's favourite attractions.

Big Ben could only come 11th and the London Eye featured in 12th place in the list, headed by the Eiffel Tower.

St Peter's in Rome was second, with India's Taj Mahal third and San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge fourth.

New York's Empire State building was fifth. The survey was carried out by Hotels.com which questioned 10,000 world travellers.

The Eiffel Tower was a comfortable winner in the worldwide poll, but although UK travellers who were surveyed also placed the Parisian landmark top, their voting pattern put St Peter's a close second.

The poll also showed the Spanish were most keen to travel to a city specifically to see a landmark.

While as many as 83% of Spaniards were "landmark travellers", only 61% of Britons were.

These were the top 12 global landmarks:

1. Eiffel Tower, Paris

2. St Peter's Basilica, Rome

3. Taj Mahal, Agra, India

4. The Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco

5. Empire State Building, New York

6. Statue of Liberty, New York

7. Sydney Opera House

8. Sagrada Familia (Gaudi-designed church masterpiece) Barcelona

9. The Acropolis, Athens

10. Christ the Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro

11. Big Ben, London

12. The London Eye