Expert Strategies

How to Win an International Travel Award

What judges evaluate, how to present your evidence, and the strategies that consistently produce winners

Judging Criteria

The Four Dimensions Judges Use to Evaluate Every Nomination

Understanding how the International Travel Awards judging panel thinks is the single most important step in preparing a winning nomination. Here is exactly what they are looking for.

The International Travel Awards judging panel comprises over 200 independent industry professionals — former tourism directors, hospitality executives, travel journalists, sustainability experts, and academic researchers. These are not generalists; they are deep specialists who have spent careers evaluating, operating, and writing about the global travel and hospitality industry. Your nomination needs to speak their language: specific, evidenced, comparative, and credible.

All nominations are assessed against four core criteria, each weighted to reflect its importance to genuine travel excellence. Understanding these criteria and preparing evidence specifically for each is the foundation of a winning submission.

⭐

1. Guest Experience & Satisfaction

This is the most heavily weighted criterion across almost every ITA category. Judges want to see verified, quantified evidence that real guests — not marketing copy — rate your brand as exceptional. What works here:

  • Aggregate review scores across TripAdvisor, Google, Booking.com, and Expedia (cite the exact score and number of reviews)
  • Net Promoter Score data with sample size and measurement methodology
  • Return guest / repeat booking rate (a 40%+ repeat rate is a powerful indicator)
  • Award-winning moments — specific stories of exceptional service recovery, personalisation, or beyond-the-brief guest experiences
  • Verbatim guest testimonials from verified platforms, not your own website

The judges are looking for pattern, not isolated incidents. A single five-star review means nothing. Ten thousand five-star reviews with a 9.3 average means everything.

💡

2. Innovation & Differentiation

The travel industry's leaders are constantly reinventing the guest experience. Judges look for brands that are not simply maintaining standards but actively pushing them forward. Evidence that impresses here:

  • New service or experience launches in the past 12–24 months, with measurable guest response
  • Technology implementations that meaningfully improved the guest experience (not just back-of-house efficiency)
  • Unique programming — signature experiences, cultural partnerships, wellness innovations that competitors have not replicated
  • Design or architectural investments that created distinctive, Instagrammable, or functionally superior environments
  • Business model innovations — flexible booking policies, personalisation at scale, AI-driven service customisation

Innovation does not require a massive budget. A boutique operator that introduced a hyper-local cultural immersion programme that grew their booking lead time by 30% demonstrates more meaningful innovation than a large chain installing contactless check-in.

🎯

3. Brand Consistency & Service Standards

Excellence is not a single moment — it is a repeatable system. Judges evaluate whether your brand delivers consistently across all touchpoints, all seasons, and all guest types. What to evidence here:

  • Staff training programmes — hours per employee, content focus, industry certifications achieved
  • Service standard documentation — SOPs, brand standards manual scope, mystery guest results
  • Complaint resolution data — percentage resolved within 24 hours, guest recovery rate
  • Consistency of review quality across seasons (high-season vs. low-season review score comparison)
  • Tenure and retention of key service staff (experienced, stable teams deliver consistent service)

A brand whose review scores are 9.5 in January and 6.8 in August will not win. Judges want to see a brand that delivers its promise reliably, every single day.

🌿

4. Sustainability & Social Responsibility

This criterion has grown significantly in weighting over recent award cycles, reflecting its importance to both travellers and the industry's long-term future. Judges take a rigorous approach here — greenwashing is easily spotted and actively penalised. Strong evidence includes:

  • Third-party sustainability certifications (Green Globe, Rainforest Alliance, EarthCheck, GSTC, ISO 14001)
  • Quantified environmental metrics — carbon emissions data, energy consumption reduction percentage, water use reduction, waste diversion rate
  • Renewable energy percentage of total energy consumed
  • Community investment — local employment percentage, supplier localisation rate, community fund contributions
  • Biodiversity and conservation programmes for nature-based operators

Claim only what you can evidence with third-party verification. Sustainability claims backed by certified data score dramatically higher than uncertified self-reported figures.

What to Avoid

Common Mistakes That Cost Nominations Their Win

Based on our years of evaluating thousands of submissions, these are the patterns that consistently hold nominations back from winning.

❌

Assertions Without Evidence

The most common failure in travel award nominations. "We provide outstanding guest service and are committed to excellence" tells a judge absolutely nothing. Every single brand makes this claim. What separates winners is the ability to prove it with specific, quantified, third-party-verifiable evidence. Replace every assertion with a data point. Instead of "excellent reviews," write "4.9 average across 6,400 Google reviews as at October 2025." Every claim needs a number or a certificate behind it.

❌

Generic, Template-Sounding Writing

Nominations written in generic corporate language — with buzzwords like "world-class," "bespoke," "curated," and "holistic" repeated throughout — score poorly. Our judges read hundreds of nominations per cycle. The ones that stand out are specific, authentic, and grounded in the real character of the brand. Write about what makes your property, team, or service uniquely yours. Use the names of real programmes, real metrics, and real guest stories. Generic nominations finish generic.

❌

Neglecting Sustainability

Brands that submit a strong nomination across guest experience, innovation, and consistency but provide no meaningful sustainability evidence are increasingly at a disadvantage. Judges are industry professionals who understand that a brand's long-term relevance in the modern travel market is inseparable from its environmental and social responsibility. Even if your property is early in its sustainability journey, demonstrate what you have started, what you have committed to, and what your roadmap looks like.

❌

Poor Visual Presentation

A luxury resort submitting blurry, poorly composed, or low-resolution photography undermines its own credibility. If you are claiming to offer exceptional aesthetic experiences, your imagery must support that claim. Judges form impressions rapidly. High-quality, professionally shot imagery of your property, dining spaces, rooms, and signature experiences communicates quality before a single word of your submission is read. Invest in photography — it is among the highest-ROI activities in award preparation.

❌

Wrong Category Selection

Some brands nominate in the most prestigious-sounding category rather than the one where they genuinely compete most strongly. A 40-room design hotel nominating against 500-room ultra-luxury resorts in the Best Luxury Hotel category will almost always be outcompeted. The same hotel nominating for Best Boutique Design Hotel — where its intimate scale, personalised service, and distinctive aesthetic are genuine competitive advantages — has a realistic path to winning. Know your competitive landscape and nominate strategically.

❌

Missing the Deadline

Late submissions are not accepted. The International Travel Awards operates on a structured annual cycle with the 2026 gala ceremony on 14 November at the Westin Marina Hotel, Dubai. Brands that rush their nomination at the last minute inevitably produce weaker submissions than those who began preparation weeks earlier. Contact our team at awards@goldentreeawards.com to confirm the current deadline for your region and begin preparation immediately.

Start Your Journey to Winning

Your Brand Has What It Takes. Now Prove It.

Thousands of travel and hospitality brands from 150+ countries compete each year. The ones that win are the ones that prepare. Use everything you have learned here and submit your nomination today.

Nominate Now View Judging Process
Questions & Answers

Frequently Asked Questions About Winning a Travel Award

Answers to the most common questions from nominees preparing to compete for International Travel Awards recognition.

International Travel Awards judges evaluate nominations across four core criteria: guest experience and satisfaction (evidenced by verified reviews, satisfaction scores, and testimonials), innovation and differentiation (unique offerings, technology implementations, and standout programmes), brand consistency and service standards (reliable delivery across all touchpoints, all seasons, all guest types), and sustainability and social responsibility (measurable environmental and community commitments backed by third-party certification). The strongest nominations provide specific, quantified evidence for each criterion rather than general assertions of quality. Judges are industry experts — they can tell within seconds whether a nomination is evidenced or generic. For full details of our evaluation methodology, see our judging process page.
Sustainability has become an increasingly significant criterion across all International Travel Awards categories, reflecting its growing importance to travellers, investors, and the travel industry's long-term future. Brands that can demonstrate genuine, measurable environmental and social commitments — supported by third-party certifications rather than self-reported claims — score significantly higher on this criterion than those offering only token sustainability gestures. Evidence should include recognised certifications (Green Globe, Rainforest Alliance, EarthCheck, GSTC), quantified environmental metrics (carbon reduction percentages, renewable energy usage, water consumption data), community investment programmes, and responsible supply chain documentation. Sustainability is no longer a bonus criterion — it is a core dimension of what defines excellence in modern travel.
The most consistent reasons nominations fail to win include: making assertions without evidence (claiming "excellent service" without quantified data), using generic corporate language that applies to any brand rather than demonstrating unique character, neglecting the sustainability criterion entirely, submitting low-quality or insufficient photography, selecting the wrong category (entering too broad or too prestigious a category where the brand cannot realistically compete), and rushing the submission without adequate preparation time. The nominations that win are those that treat the process as a serious strategic communication exercise — specific, evidenced, authentic, and beautifully presented. Start your preparation early and give yourself the time to get it right.
Absolutely — and this happens regularly in the International Travel Awards. Our evaluation framework assesses quality of experience relative to category and positioning, not absolute size of operation. Independent boutique properties regularly outperform large branded hotel chains in categories where personalisation, authentic local character, community connection, and bespoke guest experiences are valued by the judging criteria. A 20-room boutique resort with 4.9 review scores, a 55% repeat guest rate, and a deeply authentic cultural immersion programme will beat a 400-room chain hotel with 4.2 review scores every time — because quality of experience is what we are measuring. Nominate in the right category for your scale and play to your authentic competitive strengths.
Present guest satisfaction evidence in a structured, quantified format that is easy for judges to assess comparatively. Include your overall review score across major platforms (TripAdvisor, Google, Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com) with the exact score and total number of reviews cited, your ranking within your destination or category on the relevant platforms, your Net Promoter Score if available with sample size and collection methodology, your return or repeat guest rate as a percentage, your complaint resolution rate and average response time, and specific verbatim testimonials from verified platforms that speak to key service dimensions (not your own marketing materials). Trends are particularly powerful — showing that your scores have improved from 8.7 to 9.4 over 24 months demonstrates a culture of continuous improvement that judges respect enormously.
International Travel Awards winners receive a comprehensive recognition package including an official award trophy for display at your property, a winner's certificate, the right to use the ITA Winner digital badge and seal across all marketing materials (website, OTA listings, social media, print, physical premises), inclusion in the official winner announcement distributed to global travel media, a winner profile on the ITA website, and access to the full winner's digital media kit. The commercial value of this recognition — in terms of trust signals for prospective guests, booking uplift, media coverage, and OTA ranking improvements — far exceeds the cost of nomination. See our page on how travel awards help travel companies grow for a detailed breakdown of the measurable business benefits.
Submit Your Nomination