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Switzerland Is No. 1 in the World, According to 2024 Best Countries Report

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Japan is No. 2, while the United States hits its highest ranking ever and Denmark steps into the top 10.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — For the third consecutive year, Switzerland tops the overall list of the world’s Best Countries, a rankings and analysis project by U.S. News & World Report and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Now in its ninth year, the 2024 Best Countries analysis evaluates 89 nations across 73 different attributes. Attributes are grouped into 10 subrankings, ranging from entrepreneurship and quality of life to adventure and heritage. The subranking of movers – which includes factors relating to a country’s future growth – is the most heavily weighted subranking this year. 

“Amid shifting global dynamics and heightened geopolitical awareness, the 2024 Best Countries rankings provide a comprehensive snapshot of how nations are perceived on the world stage,” said U.S. News Executive Chairman & CEO Eric Gertler. “The report sheds light on a country’s potential for economic, political and cultural success and can serve as a strategic decision-making tool for citizens, business leaders and governments to better evaluate their countries.”

This is the seventh time Switzerland has earned the No. 1 spot, a position it held every year from 2017 to 2020. Switzerland performed particularly well in the subrankings for open for business, quality of life and entrepreneurship. Japan rose four spots to claim No. 2, with modest gains in the movers, open for business and adventure subrankings.

With a notable increase in the open for business subranking, the United States climbed two spots to No. 3, marking its best performance in the history of the Best Countries rankings. The country notably ranked No. 20 in the movers subranking, marking another historically high performance. Rounding out the top 5 Best Countries are Canada at No. 4 and Australia at No. 5. Denmark rejoins the top 10 after a year’s hiatus, jumping three spots from 2023.

Key themes from the 2024 Best Countries Survey and Report:

Elections in the United States shape global outcomes. Eighty-six percent of respondents agreed with the statement, “Elections in the United States impact the rest of the world.” Meanwhile, close to half of global respondents agreed to some extent that Donald Trump would have a negative impact on the world if elected as the next U.S. president. About 34% agreed he would have a positive impact. Note: Kamala Harris was not the Democratic candidate when the survey was fielded so no comparable data for Harris is available for this metric.

Global support for Ukraine has waned. Respondents were generally favorable toward their own country’s support of Ukraine in its defense against Russia in 2022, with 72% agreeing to some extent with the statement, “My country should be supportive of Ukraine in their defense against Russia.” However, in 2023, that support fell to 67%, and in 2024 was at less than 66%.

Global optimism on artificial intelligence varies between Western and Eastern countries. More than 80% of survey respondents in China, Vietnam and Thailand agreed to some extent with the statement that the benefits of artificial intelligence outweigh the threats, while many Western nations were more cynical about AI.

Global support for immigration continues to tick down. Fifty-seven percent of respondents – down from 59% in 2023 – agreed to some extent with the statement, “My country should be more open to immigration.”

International support for gender equality remains strong, despite generational gaps. Eighty-nine percent of respondents believe that women should have the same rights as men, slightly down from about 90% in 2023. Agreement also varies by age, with more than 84% of respondents ages 18 to 35 supporting gender equality, compared with more than 94% of respondents ages 46 and older.

Perception of the global economy is improving. Seventy-seven percent of respondents agreed to some extent with the statement, “The global economy is in decline,” compared with 80% in 2023 and 82.5% in 2022.

The 2024 Best Countries rankings methodology is based on a proprietary survey of nearly 17,000 global citizens from 36 countries, including business leaders, college-educated individuals who are middle-class or higher, and general citizens who are nationally representative of their country. The survey was administered from March 22 through May 23, 2024.

“The Best Countries report speaks to the value of having a strong global image as nations compete for foreign trade, tourists and socioeconomic influence,” said David Reibstein, professor of marketing at the Wharton School. “The Best Countries ranking is more than a beauty contest. Global leaders need to realize that how their countries are viewed affects their economies through tourism, foreign direct investment and foreign trade, all critical components of their GDP.”

The Best Countries rankings are part of U.S. News’ Government Rankings initiative, which measures government performance at the international, state and local levels and includes the Best States and Healthiest Communities projects.

2024 Best Countries Rankings
See the full rankings here.

Overall
1. Switzerland
2. Japan
3. United States
4. Canada
5. Australia
6. Sweden
7. Germany
8. United Kingdom
9. New Zealand
10. Denmark

Quality of Life
1. Denmark
2. Sweden
3. Switzerland

Adventure
1. Brazil
2. Italy
3. Greece

Movers
1. United Arab Emirates
2. China
3. Qatar

Heritage
1. Greece
2. Italy
3. Spain

Racial Equity
1. Denmark
2. Finland
3. New Zealand

Green Living
1. Sweden
2. Finland
3. Switzerland

For more information on the 2024 Best Countries, follow coverage on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X (formerly Twitter) using #BestCountries.

About U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is the global leader in quality rankings that empower consumers, business leaders and policy officials to make better, more informed decisions about important issues affecting their lives and communities. A multifaceted digital media company with Education, Health, Money, Travel, Cars, News, Real Estate and 360 Reviews platforms, U.S. News provides rankings, independent reporting, data journalism, consumer advice and U.S. News Live events. More than 40 million people visit USNews.com each month for research and guidance. Founded in 1933, U.S. News is headquartered in Washington, D.C.

About the Wharton School
Founded in 1881 as the world’s first collegiate business school, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania is shaping the future of business by incubating ideas, driving insights, and creating leaders who change the world. With a faculty of more than 235 renowned professors, Wharton has 5,000 undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, and doctoral students. Each year 13,000 professionals from around the world advance their careers through Wharton Executive Education’s individual, company-customized, and online programs. More than 104,000 Wharton alumni form a powerful global network of leaders who transform business every day. For more information, visit www.wharton.upenn.edu.

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SOURCE U.S. News & World Report, L.P.

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DeepL unveils industry-first Glossary Generator to solve business communication and brand consistency challenges

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Enhanced DeepL glossary functionality – including new glossary generator, expanded language support and more – will boost global business translations, saving time, effort, and costs

COLOGNE, Germany, Sept. 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — DeepL, a leading global Language AI company, today announced several updates to its glossary feature, which is a powerful tool that enhances translation consistency and accuracy by enabling professionals and companies to personalize translations for specific terms. The tool now offers the industry’s first smart glossary generator, which helps simplify and speed up the process of creating glossaries for translations. Glossary is also available in several new languages and within DeepL’s browser extensions and integrations, fitting seamlessly into existing workflows to offer an even more accessible and smooth user experience across the web and applications like Google Workspace and Microsoft 365.

“AI-powered translations are essential for businesses looking to overcome language barriers in today’s increasingly connected world, and DeepL’s powerful glossary tool takes this a step further by ensuring translations are personalized to a company’s unique phrases and needs,” said Christopher Osborne, VP of Product, DeepL. “We’re always looking for ways to improve the DeepL experience and drive even more value and ROI for 100,000+ customers worldwide, and these new capabilities make our glossary even more efficient, accessible and user-friendly – empowering teams to achieve the customization and consistency they are looking for, while minimising time spent on costly alternatives like manual translations or find-and-replace tools.”

For global businesses aiming to drive revenue growth, investing in brand consistency across all communications and languages is essential to ensure that every message—whether technical terminology, product names, or branded terms—resonates clearly with teams, customers, and markets worldwide. Consistent branding has been proven to increase revenue by 20% or more[1] and enhance visibility by 3 to 4 times[2] – however, maintaining this consistency can be expensive and complex. DeepL’s glossary tool simplifies this process, helping businesses and professionals easily create and scale high-quality, consistent multilingual communications across teams. With glossary, companies can create and manage custom translation glossaries to ensure that specific words or phrases are translated consistently according to their unique terminology.

DeepL’s glossary now offers the following expanded capabilities:

The industry’s first smart, AI-powered glossary generator: DeepL’s new glossary generator is a first-of-its-kind tool enabling teams to create custom translation glossaries with a simple file upload. Previously translated files can be leveraged to generate entries for personalized DeepL glossaries, reducing the need for manual work and significantly enhancing efficiency, enabling teams to facilitate more consistent communication at scale.Expanded glossary language functionality: Glossary now supports Korean, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Romanian translations, bringing the total number of languages to 16. This allows for more precise and nuanced translations across a wider range of linguistic contexts, helping businesses reach a broader audience.More convenient access across DeepL platforms: Users are now able to access and apply the glossary directly within the DeepL browser extensions for Chrome and Edge, enabling consistent translations across the web, including Google Workspace applications. Furthermore, the glossary can now also be applied directly within DeepL for Microsoft 365 integrations, including Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint. Additionally, the glossary can be accessed through DeepL’s web browser, desktop apps, and API.

Unlike other find-and-replace tools, DeepL’s glossary excels with its advanced contextual understanding and ability to process complex grammatical elements—such as case, gender, and tense—to deliver nuanced, natural-sounding translations. This results in substantial productivity gains, largely due to the time saved in post-editing. Blind tests with language experts show that DeepL reduces post-editing time by 30% compared to Google Translate and 20% compared to Chat GPT-4. Furthermore, DeepL requires significantly fewer edits, with Google Translate and Chat GPT-4 needing two to three times as many feedback rounds.

Glossary with DeepL Pro also offers enhanced data security, including proprietary data centers, the highest level of certification and compliance standards (ISO 27001 certification, GDPR/SOC 2 type 2 compliance), data encryption, and a commitment to never using Pro customer data to train models.

DeepL’s glossary generator is now available to Pro Advanced and Ultimate subscribers with support for TMX/DOCX/PDF files. It is initially available for glossaries in German, Spanish, Japanese, Italian, French, and Russian (to and from English), with more languages coming soon.

Learn more about DeepL Pro and try out glossary yourself here.

About DeepL

DeepL is on a mission to break down language barriers for businesses everywhere. Over 100,000 businesses and governments and millions of individuals in 228 global markets trust DeepL’s Language AI platform for human-like translation and better writing. Designed with enterprise security in mind, companies around the world leverage DeepL’s AI solutions that are specifically tuned for language to transform business communications, expand markets, and improve productivity. Founded in 2017 by CEO Jaroslaw (Jarek) Kutylowski, DeepL today has over 900 passionate employees and is supported by world-renowned investors including Benchmark, IVP, and Index Ventures.

[1] Marq, “2021 Brand Consistency Report”
[2] Demand Metric x Lucid Press, “Impact of Brand Consistency” Report, 2016

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SOURCE DeepL

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Agoda: Chinese Travelers Post a 137% Increase in International Searches for Upcoming Golden Week

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SINGAPORE, Sept. 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Digital travel platform Agoda has revealed a 137% year-over-year increase in international accommodation searches from China for the upcoming Golden Week. China’s second Golden Week of the year takes place from 1 to 7 October.

Agoda’s accommodation search data reveals a shift in Chinese travelers’ preferences for Golden Week. Last year, the top five outbound destinations were Tokyo, Seoul, Osaka, Kyoto, and Bangkok, respectively. This year, Seoul has emerged as the number one destination, leapfrogging Tokyo. Bali is a new entry in the top five and takes third place. Bangkok and Osaka continue to be among the most searched destinations and complete the ranking in fourth and fifth, respectively.

Taking place from 1 – 7 October this year, Golden Week is a prime travel period for Chinese families looking to take advantage of the week-long break. Golden Weeks are celebrated twice a year in China, around Lunar New Year and China’s National Day.

Top Outbound Destinations for Golden
Week 2024

(Based on Agoda’s accommodation search data)

      1. Seoul, South Korea

      2. Tokyo, Japan

      3. Bali, Indonesia

      4. Bangkok, Thailand

      5. Osaka, Japan

Andrew Smith, Senior Vice President, Supply at Agoda said, “The increase in outbound travel searches for China’s Golden Week suggests a growing confidence among Chinese citizens to explore international travel. It’s great to see destinations close to China’s east coast like Seoul and Osaka featured in the rank, as well as holiday favorites Bangkok and Bali further south.  With the unique advantage of its ‘Asia hotels’ network, Agoda is committed to helping Chinese customers to experience the rest of Asia for less with its great value deals.”

Agoda continues to support travelers by offering over 4.5 million holiday properties globally, more than 130,000 flight routes, and over 300,000 activities, all of which can be conveniently combined in the same booking. For more information on travel options during China’s Golden Week, visit agoda.com or download the Agoda app.

About Agoda

Agoda, a digital travel platform, helps anyone see the world for less with its great value deals on a global network of 4.5M hotels and holiday properties worldwide, plus flights, activities, and more. Agoda.com and the Agoda mobile app are available in 39 languages and supported by 24/7 customer support.

Headquartered in Singapore, Agoda is part of Booking Holdings (Nasdaq: BKNG) and employs more than 6,900 staff in 25 markets, dedicated to leveraging best-in-class technology to make travel even easier.

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SOURCE Agoda

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AECOM supports the Highways Department in winning the Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors Awards for innovative road safety technology

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HONG KONG, Sept. 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — AECOM, the world’s trusted infrastructure consulting firm, today announced that a Road Defect Detection System (RDDS) technology it has developed in partnership with the Highways Department of HKSAR Government (HyD) has secured two prestigious awards from the Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors (HKIS). This RDDS project, under part of the award-winning topic “Sustainability Strategy in Road and Tree Inspection by Advanced Geo-spatial Technology,” integrates advanced geographic information system (GIS) and artificial intelligence technologies to automatically detect road defects. The new technology aims to streamline the road inspection process, improving maintenance efficiency, effectively allocating resources and helping ensure public safety.

“AECOM is dedicated to delivering innovative solutions that meet our clients’ specific needs and address their complex challenges. From deploying the world’s largest tunnel boring machine for the Tuen Mun-Chek Lap Kok Link project to integrating GeoAI in our Road Defect Detection System, we harness emerging technologies to support the Highways Department in delivering landmark projects that span tunnels, bridges, highways, and now digital solutions,” said Ian Chung, chief executive of AECOM’s Asia region.

The jointly developed RDDS technology responds to the pressing need to effectively survey Hong Kong’s vast and complex road network. To provide a superior alternative to traditional inspection methods, the AECOM and HyD teams developed an approach that automatically detects defects from road images captured by a vehicle-based camera system.

Integrating the two organizations’ geospatial expertise, the technology uses AI to identify cracks and discolored road markings from road images, which can then be viewed on a web application platform that integrates data such as quantity, location, and severity for engineers to review and assess. The multi-step system simplifies the inspection process and allows for more efficient resource allocation — bringing greater efficiency to HyD’s road maintenance work and supporting a safer road network.

The HKIS honored the technology with the Innovative Surveying Award, which commends industry participants for outstanding project quality in innovative surveying technology, and the Post-occupation Category Grand Award, which recognizes the surveyors’ efforts in enhancing work efficiency and precision through innovative technology at post-occupation stage.

The HKIS Awards aim to recognize the outstanding achievements of Hong Kong surveyors. The awards align with the Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations, affirming surveyors’ exceptional accomplishments in sustainable development projects and their contributions to improving environmental outcomes and promoting a sustainable future for Hong Kong.

For more details about the project, please visit here.

 

 

About AECOM 

AECOM is the world’s trusted infrastructure consulting firm, delivering professional services throughout the project lifecycle – from advisory, planning, design and engineering to program and construction management. On projects spanning transportation, buildings, water, new energy and the environment, our public- and private-sector clients trust us to solve their most complex challenges. Our teams are driven by a common purpose to deliver a better world through our unrivaled technical and digital expertise, a culture of equity, diversity and inclusion, and a commitment to environmental, social and governance priorities. AECOM is a Fortune 500 firm and its Professional Services business had revenue of US$14.4 billion in fiscal year 2023. See how we are delivering sustainable legacies for generations to come at www.aecom.com/hk/.

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SOURCE AECOM

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