World Travel Awards – The Grand Final

Doha in Qatar was host of the Grand Final of the 2011 World Travel Awards last week, which saw the best of the best throughout the world of travel awarded for their services to the industry.  The Wall Street Journal recently dubbed the awards as the ‘Oscars of the Travel Industry’, and it’s not hard to see why – the crème de la crème of the industry turned out to this prestigious ceremony, which marked the culmination of a whole year’s searching for the top hotels, airlines, tourist boards and even marketing campaigns and more, with each award winner chosen by a panel of highly regarded consumers and industry professionals. An abundance of honours were handed out at the do, with arguably the top award of the night going to Jumeirah, who received the esteemed World Excellence in Service award, as well as Etihad Airways, who went home with the gong for World’s Leading Airline award for the third time in three years. Although there are so many new contenders in the All Suite Hotel category, the lavish Burj Al Arab proudly received this accolade, and not for the first time either – Burj has taken home this award on a massive seven occasions in the category’s 13 years! The hotel was also proud to receive the overall award for World’s Leading Hotel – again for the seventh year in a row! Mardan Palace in Turkey won the World’s Leading Luxury Resort prize, while Jebel Ali Golf Resort & Spa took home the award for the World’s Leading Family Resort, and One&Only The Palm in Dubai was named as the World’s Leading New Resort. The island of Jamaica was the winner of the World’s Leading Honeymoon Destination award, which has been traditionally won by a Caribbean isle since 2001, but is the first time that Jamaica has been awarded the prize. Previous years have seen this category won by Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados and most abundantly of late, St Lucia. The World’s Leading Eco Resort & Spa award went to the delightful Thai resort of Soneva Kiri by Six Senses, while the World’s Leading Eco-Lodge award was presented to South Africa’s Sanbona Wildlife Reserve, Dwyka Tented Lodge. Trou Aux Biches in Mauritius, which re-opened its doors towards the end of 2010 after a full refit, won the award for World’s Leading Beach Destination. It was a wonderful night for the travel industry, and we are very pleased that so many of our airline, tourist board and hotel friends were rewarded for their services to travel during 2011. Carole Booth is Commercial Director at Destinology. If you would like to be a guest blogger on A Luxury Travel Blog in order to raise your profile, please contact us.