PARIS, Dec 3 — The sumptuous Peninsula Paris won the annual competition for the World’s Leading Luxury Hotel at the 26th World Travel Awards — considered to be the tourism industry’s equivalent of the Oscars — in Muscat in the Sultanate of Oman. Along with Oman Air and Royal Caribbean cruises, The Peninsula Paris took one of the top awards, which include close to 270 categories.
At the 26th World Travel Awards, The Peninsula Paris was designated the World’s Leading Luxury Hotel, while other French winners included the champagne house GH Mumm, which took the prize for the best wine tourism visit. For its part, Disneyland Paris was honored not for the quality of its theme park, but for its resort.
At the international tourism rendezvous, Middle Eastern tourism companies were recognised by large numbers of awards, among them Oman Air, which won the “World’s Leading Airline — First Class” award while Oman Airports took the award for the World’s Leading Airports Operator, and the World’s Leading Airline 2019 title as well as the Customer Experience award went to Etihad Airways. Emirates was honoured for its cabin crew. Offering a tourist experience that combines desert expeditions with scuba diving and the exploration of local traditions, Oman also won the title for the World’s Leading Nature Destination. As for the World’s Leading Theme Park, this year’s title went to Ferrari World Abu Dhabi in the UAE.
In other categories, Galaxy Macau was named World’s Leading Casino Resort and in cruising, Royal Caribbean International won World’s Leading Cruise Brand while Norwegian Cruise Line won World Leading Cruise Line and Large Ship Cruise Line.
Portugal also stood out, winning the award for World’s Leading Destination, while Lisbon was singled out as World Leading City Break Destination. As for getting around on a budget, AirAsia took the award for World’s Leading Low-Cost Airline 2019.
The complete list of award winners for 2019 is available here. — AFP-Relaxnews
