Barcelona ranked among top ten most reputable cities in the world

Barcelona is the sixth most reputable city in the world, according to a new study, beating Edinburgh, Geneva, Copenhagen and Venice in the top ten.

International consulting firm Reputation Institute based the rankings on surveying more than 19,000 people from industrialized countries on what they thought of each place in terms of its economy, government and environment.

"The overall reputation of a city is built upon direct experience, mass communication, third-party endorsements and broadly accepted stereotypes," said Fernando Prado, managing partner at Reputation Institute, in a statement. "These are bottom-line issues for local policymakers, because a good reputation strongly correlates with an increase in tourism, relocation and investment in that city."

Barcelona scored the highest for its appealing environment, coming in third after Rome and Paris.

But Rome came in 14th place for overall reputation while Paris came in 16th place.

Barcelona also got a boost since last year’s ranking in which placed it at number nine.

According to the study, reputation is important because it affects diplomacy, attracting foreign knowledge and talent, as well as tourism.

But Barcelona has been at odds over the past year with its booming tourism sector, taking measures to stem the tide by banning large tourist groups from the iconic La Boqueria market and suspending the issuance of new licenses for tourist accommodation for a year.

In a separate study last week, Barcelona’s reputation as a startup hub was ranked quite highly in Europe.

In the Reputation Institute report, Sydney was ranked the most reputable city overall, followed by Melbourne, Stockholm, Vienna and Vancouver.

The cities with the worst reputations were Baghdad at number 101, Tehran (100) and Moscow (99).