There are 27 days to go before the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi hosts the regional World Travel Awards for the Middle East and Africa ceremony.  The property is still one of the most talked about new properties in the United Arab Emirates. The $3 billion hotel is a truly spectacular property and a perfect formula to thrill the region’s travel industry.

On May 30th the Emirates Palace will host the World Travel Awards regional gala ceremony. This is when 300 of the travel industry elite will celebrate their achievements.

“The World Travel Awards (WTA) is growing—and expanding the world-renowned honours scheme to the globe’s regions this year,” says James Khan, Global Business Director for the World Travel Awards.

“There are a limited number of places for the ceremony at the Emirates Palace and we suggest booking as soon as possible,” says Khan.

“The ever growing number of nominees for the awards reflects an escalating global, as well as local interest and a growing need to recognise award winners in their own territory.”

Rather than the current format of one awards ceremony per year, the WTA is now hosting regional ceremonies throughout the year—therefore generating more interest, competition and excitement across the world.

The continent-level honours scheme will then feed into the global awards, building up the crescendo to the gala ceremony for the world winners of the World Travel Awards as the highlight of the year.

The four chosen locations for these regional gala events include Bangkok, New York, Newcastle Gateshead in the UK. These will cover the various country and regional level awards for the Middle East and Africa, the Asia-Pacific, the Americas, as well as Europe, respectively
The winners and top nominees at the regional awards will be put forward for their respective global categories, which will be announced towards the end of this year. This year the star-studded gala event will again take place on the Turks & Caicos Islands.

World Travel Awards was established in 1993 to acknowledge and celebrate excellence in the world’s travel and tourism industry. With thousands of votes cast by travel professionals from 160,000 travel agencies, tour & transport companies and tourism organisations in over 160 countries across the globe, winning a World Travel Award has become one of the highest accolades a travel product or organisation can achieve. World Travel Awards are especially coveted as, uniquely, the votes are cast globally by fellow professionals. With trophies awarded in nearly 1,000 different categories, the World Travel Awards is undoubtedly the world’s most comprehensive awards celebration.

Attended by top executives of winning companies, the World Travel Awards events are highly regarded and well established as a forum that brings together all areas of travel and tourism in recognition of their achievements.

The winners of the World Travel Awards represent the crème de la crème of the global travel industry, be it a destination, train, luxury hotel, resort, airline, airports, cruise line or a safari lodge. In a recent survey, the attendees of our latest event in the Turks & Caicos Islands, were from over 25 countries, from Maldives to New Zealand, from South Africa to England and 70% of those were decision makers (Directors and above), Heads of Tourism bodies (Ministers and Directors of Tourism) and business owners.
——-