Portugal wins numerous nominations for world travel awards

Nominated for ‘World's Best Destination', ‘Best Cruise Destination' and ‘Best Cruise Port', Lisbon is hopeful for a victory at the 2010 World Travel Awards ceremony in London on the 7th of November...

Created in 1993 the World Travel Awards aimed to stimulate competition and quality within the international tourism sector by globally promoting the best destinations and services rendered. Now referred to as the ‘Oscars of Tourism' the nominees are painstakingly chosen based on online votes from thousands of travel professionals from around the world.

In less than two years Portugal's capital city has propelled itself to sit comfortably amongst Europe's most enticing destinations, collecting an assortment of awards along the way that prove the worthiness of its heady ascension.

In January this year, for the second year running, the city collected the award for ‘World's Best Hostel' at the eighth annual Hoscar (Hostelworld Customer Annual Ratings) Awards ceremony, in Dublin.

In April, Lisbon was voted ‘Europe's Best Holiday Destination' in a survey conducted by the European Consumers Organisation, which described "the wonderful city" as "the most beautiful place to go [in Europe] for a trip or a week".

Lisbon beat off competition from destinations such as Barcelona, London, Copenhagen, Bilbao, Lyon, Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague and Helsinki, which together, and in that order, formed the top ten for 2010.

These achievements followed a string of recent awards, including one from travel website Lonely Planet, which described Lisbon as a "seductive mermaid" and ranked the Portuguese capital as one of the ten-top cities to visit.

Just this week, Lisbon was voted by one of the world's leading travel advice websites as Europe's ‘Most Affordable' holiday destination. According to a survey conducted online by the well-known travel advisory website TripAdvisor, Lisbon, while not being the most attractive, cleanest or safest European city, is the most affordable for people looking to take a break in Europe.

According to the nearly 3,000 people who took part in the survey, Lisbon is more cost-friendly than Prague (Czech Republic) and Istanbul (Turkey), which took second and third place respectively.

Source: The Portugal News Online