DUBLIN’S Guinness Storehouse has beaten the Eiffel Tower and Buckingham Palace to be named Europe’s top tourist attraction.
The proud staff of the storehouse took home the coveted award at the European Gala of the 2015 World Travel Awards ceremony in Sicily on Saturday.
Paul Carty, Managing Director of the Storehouse said of the win: “Today is a very proud day for the Guinness Storehouse team.”
“We were honoured to have been shortlisted amongst such iconic attractions but to be voted by the public as ‘Europe’s leading tourist attraction’ goes beyond anything we could have imagined.”
Competition was stiff for the European award – with six renowned tourist attractions from around the continent on the shortlist.
The Eiffel Tower, Buckingham Palace, the Colosseum in Rome, Greece’s Acropolis, Ribeira do Porto in Portugal and Barcelona’s La Sagrada Familia all made the cut.
But despite being by far the newest tourist attraction on the list, the public voted for the Guinness Storehouse as their favourite.
The building was completed in 1904 and until the late 1980s, was in use as a brewery. In 2006, after extensive renovations and the addition of an impressive viewing platform, the Guinness Storehouse opened as a museum.
Since opening as a tourist attraction, the Guinness Storehouse has welcomed 13million visitors - everyone from Britain’s Queen Elizabeth to American actor Tom Cruise.
