Christine Hitt
Waikiki Beach is the most complained about beach in the world, according to a study by Cloudwards. Waikiki Beach received the highest complaint score of 100 out of 100. No other beach on the list scored 100.
"At Cloudwards, we wanted to uncover the truth behind postcard-worthy locations by analyzing what real travelers are saying," said Cloudwards, a cloud storage specialist. "We meticulously examined TripAdvisor reviews for 200 of the world's most popular beaches to determine which sandy shores are leaving visitors feeling salty."
The company said it used keyword searches for words like "dirty," "overcrowded," "long queues," "noise" and "disruption" to help calculate the scores. The more complaints a beach had, the higher the score.
Waikiki Beach's high score is primarily due to complaints about overcrowding — the reason for 67.3% of the complaints. Other complaints: 15.9% thought it was dirty, 9.2% were turned off by noise or disruption and 7.6% complained about long queues.
The second-place beach, Venice Beach in California, received a total complaint score of 89.7, primarily due to dirtiness. It received a score of 60.6% under dirty and 20.7% under overcrowded.
Other Hawaii beaches on the list include Maui's Kaanapali Beach with a complaint score of 40.7 and Poipu Beach Park with a complaint score of 37.2. Both are high on the list largely due to overcrowding as well.