European firms come first at World Travel Awards

At the recent World Travel Awards held in Portugal earlier this month the likes of Virgin Atlantic, Adam & Eve Hotels, Carlson Wagonlit Travel and Europcar were among the top winners in their category. It is considered to be the most prestigious awards event for the travel sector and one of the eventual winners was Lufthansa for being the best airline in all of Europe. Staying in Europe, Marriot Hotels Resorts & Suites won the title of leading brand and the overall best destination within the EU went to Lisbon in Portugal. As well as world and European awards there were a number of awards given out for countries individually.

The awards how they stand now, have been growing in stature around the worldwide travel community. Airlines, travel agents, tour operators and groups now all fight and hope to come away with one of the prestigious awards as it has proved to be good for their business. Loyalty is the number one factor that these awards bring with repeat custom and international brand recognition. There was almost 1,500 travel related firms that were nominated this year for one of the 177 that were on offer.

The President of World Travel Awards, Graham Cooke, said this year’s winners were something special as they managed to keep their goals focused despite the fact the world was in a recession or because of the outbreak of swine flu that had a devastating affect on tourism throughout the whole world.