It may be in the nature of human beings to wish to award the best within a given field. Awards are given across most industries and the travel industry is no exception to this; perhaps they don’t have the reach or the ‘glamour’ of the Academy Awards, but some travel awards are really a big deal. As we open our very own NomadMania Travel Award nominations for a fourth season, we review some of the industry standards of Awards.
For purposes of better organization, we will be classifying Travel Awards into five categories: General; Specific Industry Awards; Country Specific awards; Organisational Awards and Media/Blogger Awards. This is by no means an exhaustive list – merely a first effort to classify what is out there!
Please also note we are only listing awards exclusively for the travel industry – more general awards which include a travel element such as the Webbys, the WebAwards or the Shorty Awards are not considered further here. There are also a number of awards regarding travel writing that we will not focus on more, such as the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards.
General Travel Awards
The World Travel Awards are perhaps what we could best call the ‘Oscars’ of the travel industry, or one of the most prestigious awards. These were established in 1993 and are now considered the standard of the industry, with a grand tour that precedes the final event. Winners are classified into categories by continent and then by country as well.
Awards are generally given for organisations within the travel industry – hotels, cruise operators, airlines, and the like, with cities or destinations also receiving awards. However, a travel personality of the year also receives an award. There are so many award categories it is easy to get lost in them, but it’s safe to say that these awards truly cover the travel world in its entirety.
The Travel and Hospitality Awards, initiated in 2017, are also all-encompassing, aiming at a large number of countries and broad organisations within the travel industry. Hotels, tour operators, restaurants and even technology & innovation companies are eligible for nomination and the awards are based both on customer feedback and on the awards’ own data.
The International Travel Awards are back in 2024 for the 7th time and aim to reward all types of companies within the Travel and Tourism Industry. Based in the Middle East but with awards going to organisations across the globe, this is another international effort at rewarding excellence.
The Swiss Tourism Awards are held annually in Lugano, but the name is slightly misleading as the awards are global in nature and aim at selecting global destinations that are worth rewarding and focusing on.
Specific Industry/Niche Awards
The World Sustainable Travel and Hospitality Awards have a special interest in organisations that focus on accelerating change in practices for sustainability. This is a new award whose 1st Gala Ceremony will be held in Belize on September 27th, 2024. Its launch indicates the importance of the theme of sustainability within the industry.
In a similar guise, the Responsible Tourism Awards look at sustainability in their quest to make travel a much more responsible issue.
The leading awards within the aviation industry specifically are the well-known World Airline Awards Skytrax. Initiated in 1999, they are in essence a global satisfaction survey, with any airline in the world eligible for nomination. Airlines are classified by region, class, entertainment and other factors which allows for a large number of award categories within this segment.
Meanwhile, the Freddie Awards focus on loyalty programmes. Named in honour of aviation pioneer Freddie Laker, they have become the standard in the industry of travel loyalty in their 35+ years of existence. Voters have 13 language to choose from in their vote which divides the world geographically into 3 areas: Americas, Europe/Africa, Middle East/Asia/Oceania.
One of the oldest existing awards are the Frontier Awards, this year celebrating their 40th year. They focus specifically on the retail sector within travel, with categories such as Airport Retailer of the Year, Cruise of Ferry Line Retailer of the Year, Supplier of the Year etc. These awards also have some limited people-based categories and do give a lifetime achievement award.
The World Luxury Tourism Awards were established in 2020 to meet the needs of this specific segment. The first event was held in Mauritius, followed by Turkey and then by an event in Athens, Greece. Focusing on hotels, spas and restaurants that truly excel, we await news for the next installment.
Country specific awards
There are obviously many awards with a country-specific focus. We assume that there must be more than a hundred country-specific travel awards, so those listed here are just a sample.
- Canadian Travel Awards;
- Sweden’s Grand Travel Awards;
- South Africa Travel Awards;
- India Travel Awards;
- Greece Tourism Awards;
- Singapore Tourism Awards;
- Australia’s National Travel Industry Awards.
It is worth mentioning the British Travel Awards, initiated in 2008 and involving a huge public poll currently counting about 400,000 registered voters, making it the industry’s largest consumer votes awards in the country.
Also worth mentioning are the US-only Destiny and Mercury Awards which recognise destinations and state tourism offices for their destination marketing contributions.
Organisation Awards
Certain magazines or publications feature their own travel awards. Among the most prestigious are the Condé Nast Travellers Readers Choice Awards which will be celebrating its 37th edition this year. With half a million voters overall, this is truly big and features interesting categories such as spas, trains and even luggage.
Travel and Leisure Magazine has a similar concept in its World Best Awards which appear to go back more than ten years. Some of the awards here seem to be geographically quite niche, for example ‘Favourite Resorts in Montana’, so we assume there are truly many categories involved.
Trip Advisor holds its Travelers’ Choice Awards which have become a bit of an industry standard. These are based on the reviews and ratings of the Trip Advisor users themselves. ‘Beaches’ and ‘Things to do’ are among the ‘best of’ categories.
The Business Travel Awards Europe by BTN have been held for more than 25 years. These awards have a number of interesting, out-of-the-box categories including Technology Innovation, Achievement in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and Travel Team of the Year. The awards are generally held in London, UK.
Travel Daily Media Travel Trade Excellence Awards is a similar award programme focusing on Asia. The final event this year will be held in Singapore. Interestingly, there is a Booking Platform mega-category as well as a general category for Projects & Iniatives, which allows for a broader understanding of the term ‘hospitality’.
The Travel Industry Awards by TTG focus on the UK & Ireland in a similar fashion. Likewise in the UK, the Times’ Travel Awards are a well-known feature of the publication and even feature prizes for the voters.
Media and Bloggers
The TravMedia Awards focus on achievements in terms of journalism, PR and blogging. Unlike the previous awards mentioned, here individual efforts are celebrated. Categories include Travel Writer of the Year, Travel Magazine of the Year and Media Rising Star of the Year. These awards are UK based, as are the similarly named Travel Media Awards.
The newly formed TBEX Travel Creator Awards again rewards individuals in categories such as Best Travel Blog, Best Travel Photography, Best Travel Podcast, Outstanding Social Media Presence, and the like. The first event was held in July 2024 in Puerto Rico.
There is surprising dearth of awards for travel blogging overall and many of the initial awards such as ‘Best of the Blogs’ have been discontinued. We were able to find a Belgian Travel Blog Awards event, which has been held annually since 2018. There is also a Spanish award called the IATI Awards which are focused exclusively on digital content in travel – with categories for blog, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and overland travel.
The NomadMania Travel Awards
Surprise, surprise – there seem to be no awards out there that celebrate people for their travel accomplishments as such. The people-based awards that we were able to trace generally had to do with social media or digital marketing; a few of the bigger awards do have a ‘Travel Personality of the Year’ type of award, which reflects accomplishments within the travel industry in general, but not for travelling itself.
We would therefore say that the NomadMania Travel Awards are a category in and of their own – the only awards voted on by a community vote that focus on individual travel achievements themselves. We remind you that the categories that are open for a public vote in the NomadMania awards are:
- Most Intrepid Traveller
- Best Travel Content Creator
- Most Purposeful Traveller
- Best Travel Book Author
- Most Trusted Local Fixer
- Biggest LPI (Low Passport Index) Traveller
- Biggest Traveller
The NomadMania Team, meanwhile, decides the following award categories internally:
- Against All Odds Traveller
- Biggest NomadMania Friend
- Best Envoy/Envoy Coordinator (new award to be given for the first time in 2024)
- Best NomadMania Team Member (decided exclusively by our founder)
- Travel Lifetime Achievement Award
Nominees Submission in Open
We look forward to your participation in the whole process of nominating worthy travellers for our Travel Awards 2024 as well as voting online when we have the final shortlisted candidates toward the end of October.
Please submit your nominee here 🙂
The NomadMania Travel Awards 2024 will be held live in Bangkok as part of the Extraordinary Travel Festival on November 17th, 2024 (use the code “NOMAD” for a $100 discount).
