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Virgin America, Singapore Airlines Take Tops In Condé Nast Traveler Awards
Last night in New York (the unfriendliest city in the nation, according to results), Condé Nast Traveler held the awards reception for their 2009 Readers Choice Awards, hosted by Stanley Tucci and Mary Louise Parker and seeing big wigs like Richard Branson and David Cush (of Virgin America) in attendance.
This year, 25,000 of CN Traveler's readers voted for their favorites in such categories as best cruise line, best Asian city, and even top car rental agencies. While with some winners, we wonder how they even got on the ballot (Capri is one of the best European islands? Maybe 20 years ago), we absolutely saw no competition for some of the winners (Singapore Airlines took tops in international airlines again}.
While reading the winners after the jump, keep in mind that Traveler's demographic skews a bit older and affluent, so seeing the Hotel du Palais in Biarritz take Top European Resort even though it feels like no one's been there in eighty years is not so surprising, as is the fact that the Four Seasons positively cleaned up in some hotel categories.
Tags: Travelzoo / Awards / American Airlines / United / Megabus / Royal Caribbean / → All Tags
2009 Travelzoo Awards Give Top Honors to American Airlines
A photo from the 2008 Tzoos
Have you ever had a fantasy where several skimpily-clad flight attendants try to get you drunk on cocktails named "Zoo-tinis" and then hand you a giant letter "Z" as a reward for being awesome? If you were lucky enough to be British Airways or Royal Caribbean Cruises on Wednesday night, then it wouldn't have been a fantasy at all.
At the Travelzoo Awards 2009 at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, the "Top 20" email travel alerts newsletter reached into its bag of deal providers and picked the best of the best to bestow with a "Tzoo" award.
Looking at the list of winners, we can't help but wonder "WTF" for some, and utter a "hip-hip-hooray" for others. We've listed the most interesting of the awards for you below, and we're sure you'll recognize some of the major deal players who grace more than just Travelzoo with their low, low prices (we're talking about you, Megabus and Qantas).
Tags: Awards / Contests / RTW / → All Tags
Get Your City on the RTW Monopoly Board
We love a good voting contest, and the nastier and more competitive it is the better. Which is why we were happy to find out about the upcoming edition of our favorite board game, Monopoly. The "Here and Now: World Edition" is coming soon. Picking just 22 cities for the game is gonna get ugly.
Before the factories can start churning out the new Monopoly board, it's up to the general public to decide which world cities go on the board and where. The top 20 cities as voted on the website will be allocated to spots on the board according to their ranking on February 28. The final favorite city will get the most expensive spot. (After that, there are two wild-card spots available.)
So if you have a niche kind of city that's your favorite, head to the website and do a write-in vote for it. From February 29, there'll be one more voting stage to see which two write-in cities will win the cheapest spots on the board. And then we'll be able to throw the dice and head to jail all while we're doing a round-the-world trip.
Related Stories:
· World Cities Vie for Monopoly's Boardwalk [Intelligent Travel]
· Monopoly World Edition [Official Site]
[Photo: Lion's Mane]
Tags: Australia Travel / Condé Nast Traveler / Awards / → All Tags
Number One City: Sydney is Friendly
A bunch of Sydney-siders (as they like to call themselves) are giving themselves a good pat on the back this month after their fair city was voted numero uno on the Condé Nast Traveler list of top cities.
With a score of 87.7, Sydney's nearest competitor was Florence, with an 86.8. Magazine readers who voted said Sydney had "ambiance and friendliness", proving that having the tallest buildings in the world or the biggest range of souvenir key chains aren't actually the key focus of travelers.
Whether or not the win actually translates into more business for Sydney isn't clear: After all, most of the votes came from North America, and that's pretty far from Down Under. But the Aussies don't care and have splashed the news everywhere, hoping that anyone would listen--in a friendly way, of course.
Related Stories:
· Sydney Top in Tourist Poll [SMH]
· Travel Stories in Sydney [Jaunted]
· Sydney Hotel Reviews [HotelChatter]
[Photo: Str1ke]
Tags: LCCs / Low Cost Carriers / Awards / Clickair / Ryanair / → All Tags
Budgies Name Best LCCs of 2007
With its impressive-sounding name, the World Low Cost Airlines Congress wound up in London last week, and ended with the awarding of the not-so-impressive sounding Budgie$. Ryanair came home with the prize for best low cost carrier.
The awards, despite sounding like those tiny tweeting birds, are in fact industry awards given to the best low cost carriers. Reps from 130 different airlines waited to hear if they'd got a gong, but only 11 major awards were given out, so plenty went home empty-handed.
So who were the winners on the night? Well, the award for the Best Newcomer is one we agree with, going to Spanish LCC ClickAir, and the best LCC website went to the niche airline Iceland Express (the site sure does have some pretty pictures).
And as we mentioned, the big award for Best Low Cost Carrier went to Ryanair, despite its inclination to charge passengers for virtually anything. There's no accounting for taste.
Related Stories:
· The Budgie$ [Official Site]
· Budgie Awards Results [ClickPress]
· Iceland Express [Official Site]
· LCCs Coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: aromano]
Tags: Airlines / Advertising / Awards / Air New Zealand / → All Tags
Pimp Your Air NZ Plane
We can't believe we missed our chance to be on Air New Zealand's special MTV flight last month, but the good news is you can still have a go at their online Pimp My Plane promotion. The ad just won an award for the best online ad campaign in the People's Choice NetGuide Web Awards.
If you want to pimp a plane you can click on a range of paint jobs, wings, rims and tints and "bling" to make the Air NZ plane look, well, completely unrecognizable, but pretty cool. If only you could pimp it and then actually ride on it too.
[Photo: captain doodle]
Related Stories:
· Web Awards Winners [NetGuide NZ]
· Pimp My Plane [Official Site]
Tags: Australia / Awards / → All Tags
Giddy for Gold Logies, But No One Goes Yarra
Last night, in Melbourne, Australia, the self proclaimed sporting capital of the world, pop culture rag TV Week hosted its Gold Logies, Australia's version of the Emmys.
Kate Ritchie, the Susan Lucci of Aussie soaps, took home the award for Most Popular Personality on TV. Ritchie grew up playing Sally Fletcher for the last 19 years on Home and Away. The show, naturally, follows the lives and loves of residents in a suburban small town.
The ceremony also honored the late Crocodile Hunter for his contributions to documentary film. Terri Irwin and her franchise, er, daughter Bindi accepted the award on Steve's behalf.
Few Hollywood stars showed up for the event. Jessica Alba came to support two of her Fantastic Four nominees, Michael Chiklis and Ioan Gruffudd. Alba blazed down the runway faster than The Human Torch, reports The West Australian.
Sadly, no one took a plunge in Melbourne's famous upside down river.
Tags: Lists / Awards / → All Tags
Waterfront Gongs to Scandinavia
New York-based Project for Public Spaces comes up with neat lists from time to time, giving us good tips on public places to hang out wherever we visit. They've just published a definitive Great Waterfronts of the World giving us both the Top 6 Waterfront Cities and the Top 13 Waterfront Places (although it'd be great if someone could give `em the hint that most people love a Top 10).
Coming in at numero uno for the top waterfront city is Sweden's capital, Stockholm. Having few vehicular roads near the waterfront, they say, makes it a great place for walking near the water, and what's more:
When you are ready to move away from the water, another pedestrian-oriented path will appear, ready to whisk you off to a destination elsewhere in the city.
Love those pedestrian-oriented paths. Venice, Helsinki, San Sebastian in Spain, Sydney and Hamburg, Germany, round out the Top 6.
And the best waterfront place in the world? Still in Scandinavia, it's Helsinki's Market Square and Esplanade. It's got an indoor market hall full of funky Finnish food and you can easily walk all around the harbour. Except, of course, in those cold Finnish winters, that do seem to last about half the year. Then it'd be winning the award for the best icefront place in the world.[Photo: N _Creatures]
Related Stories:
· Great Waterfronts [Project for Public Spaces]
Tags: Airlines / Wine / Awards / Drinking / → All Tags
Love That Airline Sherry
If you're a wine buff and a frequent flyer, then the annual UK Business Traveller Cellars in the Sky awards are some kind of heaven for you. More than thirty international airlines competed for the awards, which recognize those with the best wine lists for serving in business and first class.
It turns out that those who are really in the know about a good wine are the Kiwis, with Air New Zealand snapping up three prizes, including the funky-sounding "Most Original First Class Wine List." (Does that mean it includes stuff like kiwi fruit wine? We hope so.) American Airlines picked up two awards, with big bonus points for its special wine, the Lustau La Plaza Vieja sherry. And we thought sherry was for grandmothers.
"What about the wine lists for those in economy class," you ask? They don't seem to have a sponsor for the "Wine That Tastes the Same As All the Others" award yet.
[Photo: schoschie]
Related Stories:
· 2006 Cellars in the Sky Awards [Business Traveller]
· American Airlines Scoops Wine Awards [Cheapflights.com]
Tags: Awards / Frequent Flier / → All Tags
..And Now, Some Travel Awards to Vote On
You may not subscribe to All About Airplane Wheels Magazine, but if you travel frequently and/or are a mileage addict, the Freddie Awards are for you. We like them because they are the brainchild of Randy Petersen, the king of frequent fliers. We once were in the same room at Randy at a party, and found that when we awoke the next day, the airline fairy had deposited a certificate for 5,000 Continental miles under our pillow. The man is pure magic.
Categories for the Freddies revolve around guest loyalty programs in the airline and hotel industries, including credit card tie-ins. The awards ceremony will be held in April at a Marriott in Arlington, VA, but we wish they could have held it at a straight-up airport hotel for the full effect.
Related Stories:
· The Freddie Awards - 2007 [Official Site]
Tags: Airlines / Awards / Lists / → All Tags
Airline Report: Awards Round-Up
Break out your feather boas and your "World's Best Best Friend" mock Oscar statuettes from middle school: it's time for the latest and greatest in travel awards of questionable relevance!
This week, Air Transport World, "the leading monthly magazine covering the global airline industry," elevated Royal Jordanian Airlines to mythical beast status, bestowing upon it the coveted "Phoenix Award" for transformation.
Below, we've rated the most recent travel awards in order of relevance and deservedness of trust and/or interest, with 5 being the best (think: Jaunted Travel Awards) and 1 being the most offensively superfluous (think: Silverjet's "Carbon Neutral Airline of the Year"). Basically, it's an excuse to break out the bubbly. It's Friday--you'd do it, too.
· Delta Airlines "is honored to be the Bahamas' 2006 Airline of the Year." [PrimeNewswire] (3/5)
· Readers of Germany's Business Traveller magazine have voted SWISS `Best Airline for Europe' in a recent poll. [eTravel Blackboard] (3/5)
· Kingfisher Airlines Bags the 2006 Avaya Global Connect Award for Customer Responsiveness [Business Wire India] (2/5)
· Royal Jordanian wins Phoenix Award [Maktoob] (1.5/5)
[Photo: mittens oh my!]
Related Stories:
· Today in Silverjet Headlines: the Best & the Only [Jaunted]
· 2006 Jaunted Travel Awards [Jaunted]
Tags: Awards / Adventure Travel / → All Tags
Aussie Sissies Choose Ballooning
We have another winner. Down in Oz they've given a gold medal to Balloon Aloft in the Adventure Tourism category at the Australian Travel and Tourism Awards. These guys stick you up in the sky in a basket with a pretty balloon on top all over Australia - well, at least in locations near Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra and Perth.
Funny thing is, they were a bit surprised to win. Remember, this is the adventure category. Said Balloon Aloft themselves:
In our category, I felt we really didn't have a chance as bigger companies like World Expedition, which does exciting things, and Aurora Expeditions, which takes people on exceptional experiences in the frozen wastelands.Whether they mean to say that hot-air ballooning is neither exciting nor exceptional, or just that they probably belong in some other category, is not quite clear. It could be that Australian voters are really just some kind of cry-babies, who didn't want something scarier like frozen wasteland expeditions, dangling over Sydney Harbour or white-water rafting backwards and blindfolded to win out--floating around in a balloon just seems safer.
[Photo: qui-bon]
Related Stories:
· Touching Rivets in Sydney Harbour [Jaunted]
