The World Travel Awards has announced that the nominees for its World Ceremony. Travel professionals now have the opportunity to cast their votes for the brands they think deserve to win the industry’s most coveted award.

This year is expected to smash all previous WTA voting records with a record-breaking 16,000 travel professionals having already registered to vote within the past four months, bringing the total number of voters to 183,000.

The regional WTA 2009 winners have automatically been put forward as nominees for the WTA finals. 987 companies have made it to the final round of nominations. The 92 WTA World category winners will be announced on 8 November at the Grosvenor House in London.

This glitzy event - taking place the day before World Travel Market - is expected to end the year on a high - with over 100 Miss World finalists already confirmed to attend and present trophies to award winners.

The Wall Street Journal has described this event as the ‘Oscars of the travel industry’.

(Pictured above Graham Cooke, President & Founder, World Travel Awards with winners at this year’s Africa Ceremony - Wessel Witthuhn, President of IFA, Zimbali Lodge & Country Club, which won “Africa’s Leading Sports Resort” and David Macgillivray, General Manager, Zimbali Lodge & Country Club)

Go to www.worldtravelawards.com/vote to vote - voting closes on September 15. Or to see if you have been nominated visit www.worldtravelawards.com/nominees2009-1. To find out more about the World final event, go to www.worldtravelawards.com/event41.