VERO BEACH — High-quality beach facilities, expert-verified water quality and a short drive to the local airport are a few reasons why South Beach Park is ranked as one of the top beaches around the globe, according to Beach.com. Journalists at Beach.com analyzed Google Map reviews to compile a list of the best coastal stays worldwide.
“Reviewers on Google Maps regularly praise the condition and availability of beach facilities at (South Beach Park),” said Noah Holtgraves, lead data journalist at Beach.com. “This includes the condition and availability of restrooms, picnic tables and benches, shelters, BBQ grills, outdoor showers, parking, ease of parking, presence of lifeguards, well-kept trash receptacles, shaded areas and much more.”
Beach.com, a digital platform, ranked South Beach Park the No. 22 best beach in the world, ranking behind scenic shores like Balos Beach in Greece, and beating out coastal beaches in Hawaii. South Beach Park – with its blue and clear water – complies with the rules of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Search rankings also point to the importance of beach tourism for Indian River County, which includes the Sebastian Inlet and other parks along the shoreline. Thousands of beach goers, including tourists visiting the area’s beaches, pour millions into the local economy with visits to restaurants and hotels, officials report.
Beach.com journalists analyzed words in Google reviews and used natural language processing to identify the emotions associated with each word, Holtgraves said. This allowed the journalists to gain an overall attitude in five different categories toward South Beach Park for scoring.
South Beach Park received four stars for access, five stars for environment, four stars for facilities, five stars for opinions and five stars for experience, according to a data table compiled by Beach.com. For the environment category, journalists searched for 122 specific key words in Google reviews that inspect both positive and negative aspects of environmental quality.
“We’re looking for mentions of positive aspects such as: beautifully maintained, clean beach, crystal clear water, flawless, litter-free, pristine condition. We look for the opposite, such as: smelly, tons of trash, unclean, waste, cigarettes, broken glass, and so on,” Holtgraves said.
“The analysis takes into account both the use of our keywords and the emotions they evoke. It’s far more than a simple tally of keywords. It’s a scoring system that also considers the intensity of the emotion behind them. The more passionate the language, the more it influences the final score.”
South Beach Park, located at 1702 Ocean Drive, is located about five miles east from the Vero Beach Regional Airport. The beach park has seven prime months throughout the year, with its peak season running from May through July.
Last month, representatives from Beach.com and Coastal Connections Inc., a Vero Beach nonprofit dedicated to protecting sea turtles and their habitats, hosted a beach cleanup at Golden Sands Beach Park.
More information about South Beach Park can be found on the City of Vero Beach website.
