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Wednesday 10 December 2008

Luxury Travel Magazine Gold List 2009 Winners



The winners of Luxury Travel Magazine's Gold List 2009, Australia's most prestigious travel awards, were announced yesterday at an industry event held in Sydney.

Now in its fifth great year, the Magazine's Gold List 2009 survey was even wider reaching in scope than in previous years – making this one of the most comprehensive luxury travel surveys ever conducted by an Australian travel magazine. The results make for fascinating reading.

Palazzo Versace, Gold Coast was voted Best Australian Hotel. For the fifth year running The Peninsula, Hong Kong, was considered the pre-eminent overseas hotel. The award for Best Australian Resort went to Hayman. Four Seasons Resort at Jimbaran Bay, Bali was voted Best Overseas Resort. Luxury travellers voted Emirates' First Class the best, and Singapore Airlines took top spot for its Business Class. Golden Door Elysia in the Hunter Valley was voted Australia's Best Spa And Chiva-Som, Thailand, Best Overseas Spa. Silversea Cruises scored a double whammy being voted Best Cruise Line and Silver Whisper, Best Small Cruise Ship. Cunard's QM2 was voted Best Large Cruise Ship.

Australia's Best Boutique Hotel was Cape Lodge, WA and Huka Lodge, NZ was voted Best Overseas Boutique Hotel. This year for the first time, readers also cast votes for their favourite family resorts, both in Australia and overseas. Hyatt Coolum and Jean Michele Cousteau took out these honours respectively. Lovers of style voted Chanel their favourite Duty Free Luxury brand, closely followed by Louis Vuitton and Prada. Paris wooed respondents as Best Overseas City for the fifth year running.

The awards are the result of a survey in which tens of thousands of Luxury Travel Magazine's subscribers and readers, and Virtuoso Traveller's, were asked to nominate the world's best hotels, resorts, spas, cruise lines, golf courses, airlines and destinations – a total of 25 categories in all.

This year the magazine again joined forces with Virtuoso – the world's most exclusive collection of luxury travel agents. Bentley, Virtuoso, Etihad, Preferred Boutique, and Pevonia Botanica all were valuable sponsor partners this year.

The Bentley Award for Outstanding Hotel Service 2009 went to The Westin Sydney. The winner in this new category was selected from a short list of 12 hotels and resorts, by a panel of five senior luxury travel industry personnel.

"The Luxury Travel Magazine Gold List survey, now in its fifth year, has once again captured the imagination of Australia's luxury travellers. This year our readers' votes show they continue to take delight in existing standout luxury products, as well as enjoying new experiences", said Hilary Doling, Editor in Chief of Luxury Travel Magazine.

The GOLD LIST 2009 SUMMER edition of Luxury Travel Magazine goes on sale on Wednesday Dec 17, 2008.

For further details of all winners in each category, please click onto our website which has full details of the winners, and their award-winning products, click here. Logos and a copy of this release are available in the 'CONTACT US' section of the website.

www.luxurytravelmag.com.au

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