Europe’s leading tourism destinations and airlines have been announced, and it looks like Portugal is poised to become the new Spain. At the annual Word Travel Awards Europe gala that took place on September 30 in St. Petersburg, Portugal took home the highly coveted award of Europe’s Leading Destination.
On top of that, the Portuguese archipelago of Madeira was hailed as Europe’s Leading Island Destination, while the famed shores of The Algarve have been given the title of the continent’s best beach destination.
Outside of Portugal, other notable winners include the Ciragan Palace Kempinski Istanbul for Europe’s Leading Hotel, a title that it has impressively kept a stronghold on since 2013. Paris’s five-star The Peninsula won the the Leading Luxury Hotel award, while St. Petersburg — the city that hosted this year’s awards — bagged the title of the Leading City Destination.
Besides resorts and hotels, airlines also had their fair share of time under the spotlight. If you’re travelling between Europe and the US or Canada any time soon, you might want to book your flight on KLM-Royal Dutch Airlines, which took the title of the best European airline to North America. Similarly, for travellers flying between Europe and Asia, British Airways is the airline carrier to turn to.
The winners of the prestigious World Travel Awards are determined based on the votes of travel professionals, industry leaders and consumer travellers. A standard vote carries a weighting of one, while verified travel professional votes carry a weighting of two.
The above winners of the Europe edition of the awards will later go forward to compete against those from the other editions in Asia, Australasia, North America and more. The 24th Annual World Travel Awards Grand Final will take place in Vietnam on December 10.
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