World Travel Awards issues call

World Travel Awards (WTA), ‘the Oscars of the travel industry’, has issued a call to the organisations that aspire to be the best in their sector to participate in its 2012 programme.
Established 19 years ago, WTA is recognised globally as the highest accolade in travel and tourism, and serves to raise the standards of customer service and business performance throughout the tourism industry.
Self nominations for its 2011 Grand Tour rose an outstanding 28 percent compared to the previous year, and in 2012 the competition is set to be the fiercest yet as growing numbers of companies and destinations realise the commercial benefits and kudos that accompany winning a WTA.
Entry is now open for categories in Africa, Asia, Australasia, Caribbean, Europe, Indian Ocean, Middle East, and North, South & Central America.
Entry forms can completed online or downloaded fromwww.worldtravelawards.com/nominate and the nomination submission deadline will be 29 February 2012.
The complete list of nominations will be announced in time for ITB in March. Voting will then open and be carried out by an audience of 213,000 travel agents and tourism professionals from 164 countries, including visitors to WTA’s website who are encouraged to submit their votes via the online voting system.
WTA’s 2012 Grand Tour will include regional legs in Dubai, the Algarve, South Africa, Miami and Thailand. The winners of these regional heats will progress to the Grand Final, which will take place in India.
Graham E. Cooke, President & Founder, WTA said: “Although 2011 continued to challenge every strata of travel and tourism, all our winners demonstrated their world-class pedigree in the face of adversity. In 2012 we are looking for those organisations that are spearheading the global recovery of travel and tourism by outperforming their peers and offering something new and exciting.”
The ceremonies are widely regarded as one of the best networking opportunities in the travel industry, attended by government and industry leaders, as well as international media.
The 2011 WTA nominations featured more than 5,000 companies in 1,000 categories across 164 countries, and WTA ceremonies were attended by more than 3,000 guests from 92 countries, as well as media from 192 TV channels and publications.