World Travel Awards chooses Madeira’s Porto Santo island for first time
For the first time, World Travel Award ‘glory’ in the title of ‘best beach destination in Europe’ has gone to Madeira’s Porto Santo island, trouncing the more habitual contenders in the Algarve, south of France/ Spain and Italy.
Madeira has in fact come out of this latest round of World Travel Awards (WTA) with three honours, including best tourism entity.
Said a press release published last night after the WTA gala in Berlin: “This is an exceptional night for Madeira, for Porto Santo and for tourism.”
In the words of regional tourism secretary Eduardo Jesus, “today Madeira, Porto Santo and Madeira Tourism, through the Promotion Association, have been elevated to the highest level of international recognition“.
Madeira has “achieved its full potential and won awards that left everyone impressed”.
Jesus also emphasised that the distinctions won are the “crowning achievement of a process, of work done with enormous dedication, great professionalism” and, at the same time, it allows Madeira and Porto Santo to “regain the sympathy of many more people and, through tourism, to be at the forefront in terms of recognition of the activity itself, of hospitality – which is a very special characteristic of Madeirans and Porto Santo residents”.
The secretary recalled that “since 2013, Madeira has been nominated and honoured at the World Travel Awards – prizes with a high European and worldwide reputation”
Madeira won the “Best Island Destination in Europe” honour for the 10th time last night, beating 12 other islands that were also in the voting, namely the Azores, the Canary Islands, Ibiza, Mallorca (Spain) Crete, Cyclades (Greece), Sardinia, Sicily (Italy), Malta, Cyprus, Guernsey and Jersey (United Kingdom).
In the case of the award given to Porto Santo beach – with nine kms of fine golden sand – the island beat out the Algarve, Cannes (France), Corfu and Costa Navarino (Greece), Mallorca and Marbella (Spain) and Sardinia (Italy).
For its part, the Madeira Promotion Association received, for the first time, the award for “Best Tourism Organisation in Europe“, in an award contest with 13 other nominees, such as the tourism entities of France, Austria, Croatia, Ireland, Germany, Greece, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Slovenia, Portugal and Visit England.
It was also announced at last night’s ceremony that Madeira will host two international World Travel Awards ceremonies in November, namely the World Golf Awards on the 22nd and the World Gala on the 24th.
“The organisation of these events is a unique opportunity to show the world what a unique and special destination this region is,” said Eduardo Jesus.
As the blurb explains, “World Travel Awards were created in 1993 and are awarded at various points of the year to recognise, reward and celebrate excellence in all key sectors of the travel, tourism and hospitality industries”.
Source material: LUSA
