Remember voting for which travel companies you thought were the best in the British Travel Awards? Altogether, 700,000 votes were received. Last Wednesday the winners were announced.
The best city break destination was awarded to New York with Barcelona and Paris as the runners-up. Australia was voted to be the best country to visit pipping Spain and Italy whereas Florida – that major British favourite – got the nod as best US state to visit.
St Moritz in Switzerland was voted best European ski destination over two French contenders, Val d’Isere and Chamonix while Aspen in Colorado beat Whistler and Lake Tahoe in the North American award.
Disneyland was the best theme park worldwide and Alton Towers won the UK honour over Legoland and Thorpe Park.
Shearings was voted best domestic holiday company of the year whilst Parkdean won the best holiday park operator and Hoseasons was best waterways operator. The Eden Project in Corwall was best UK leisure attraction and Edinburgh Castle was best heritage attraction. Staying with the domestic awards, Cornwall was voted best holiday county and St Ives was the best seaside town over Whitby and Bournemouth.
It won’t surprise many of you that the perennial winner, Emirates , has done it again in being named best airline and it also wins for best first class/business airline. Virgin Atlantic was the best economy class airline and was also the best airline for customer service.
The Manchester Airports Group must be pretty happy in that Manchester won the best major airport category and East Midlands (which they also operate) was UK airport of the year and the best regional airport as well.
Amongst the tour operator categories, the two biggies did well with Thomson getting 18 awards and Thomas Cook, 15. Virgin also won 15 awards across both the airline and Virgin Holidays. The BTA has been running for six years and every year one company has won a category every single time. It did it again this year so congratulations to the Post Office for best provider of travel insurance. You certainly do like them! And thank you from the organisers and CD-Traveller for all your votes. Shortly we will be able to reveal which of you has won the prizes on offer. The lucky winners are still being contacted about their prizes.
