The Judging Process
How the International Travel Awards selects the world's finest travel and hospitality brands — four stages, 200+ expert judges, zero commercial influence
An Independent, Rigorous Evaluation
The International Travel Awards is built on a foundation of absolute independence and unwavering rigour. We believe the only travel awards programme worth competing for is one where every winner has earned their recognition through genuine, verifiable excellence — not through commercial relationships, brand size, or marketing budget. This conviction shapes every aspect of how we design and execute our judging process.
Independence means our judges are free from commercial influence. Every member of our 200+ strong judging panel is selected for their industry expertise and their freedom from any commercial relationship with nominated brands. We have strict conflict-of-interest policies that require judges to declare and recuse from any category where a relationship might compromise objectivity. Our editorial and commercial operations are managed separately, ensuring that no commercial consideration ever reaches the judging room.
Transparency means our criteria are published, our process is documented, and our nominees understand exactly how their submission will be evaluated. We do not operate black-box scoring systems — every nominee receives feedback, and our criteria are consistently applied across all submissions, regardless of the brand's nationality, size, or sector. This transparency is why ITA winners carry their recognition with justified pride.
Multi-stage evaluation means no nomination is assessed by a single judge at a single point in time. Every submission passes through multiple review stages, with independent scoring at each stage and cross-checking to ensure consistency. The process is designed to eliminate bias, reward substance over presentation, and ensure the best brands win — period. Read more about who we are and explore our full category list before nominating.
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Our Four-Stage Process
Every International Travel Awards nomination progresses through four clearly defined stages, each designed to ensure thorough, fair, and independently verified evaluation. No shortcuts. No exceptions.
Online Nomination Submission
The process begins when a brand submits its nomination through our secure online portal at goldentreeawards.com/award-nomination. The submission includes a detailed description of the brand's excellence, supporting documentation, client testimonials, and evidence of the achievements that make them deserving of recognition. Our team is available to help nominees submit the strongest possible case — guidance on what to include, how to frame evidence, and which award categories are most appropriate for their business.
Preliminary Review & Scoring
Each submission undergoes a preliminary review by our coordination team to verify completeness, confirm category eligibility, and conduct an initial quality assessment. Submissions that meet the required standard proceed to the expert panel evaluation stage. Our coordination team scores each submission across our four evaluation criteria — generating a preliminary score that helps focus expert panel attention on the strongest submissions. Brands are notified at this stage whether they have been advanced to the expert evaluation phase.
Expert Panel Evaluation
Advanced submissions are reviewed by a subset of our 200+ strong judging panel — specifically the judges with expertise most relevant to the submission's sector, geography, and category. Each judge scores the submission independently using our standardised evaluation framework, providing detailed written commentary on their assessment. Scores are aggregated, outliers examined for consistency, and category shortlists compiled. This is the core of the ITA evaluation — a genuine peer-review process by the world's leading travel industry experts.
Public Announcement & Ceremony
Shortlisted nominees are announced publicly, giving the industry and media the opportunity to recognise the standard of brands competing. Final winners are selected by our senior judging panel from the shortlist, based on the accumulated evidence from all previous stages. Winners are notified privately before the public announcement and are invited to the annual gala ceremony in Dubai where trophies, certificates, and the digital winner's seal are formally presented. The gala is attended by industry leaders from across the globe — a fitting setting for the world's most prestigious travel recognition.
Our Expert Judging Panel
The credibility of the International Travel Awards rests entirely on the quality, diversity, and independence of our judging panel. We have invested years in building a panel of 200+ respected professionals who collectively represent the full breadth of knowledge needed to evaluate excellence across all 60+ award categories and all global regions.
Our judges are selected through a rigorous vetting process that assesses both their professional expertise and their freedom from commercial conflicts of interest. Judges are required to declare any relationship — commercial, personal, or professional — that might compromise their objectivity in any specific category, and are recused from those evaluations accordingly.
The panel is deliberately diverse — encompassing professionals from every major travel region, every industry segment, and every professional background relevant to the travel and hospitality world. This diversity ensures that our evaluation reflects a genuinely global perspective rather than any single market or sector bias.
Judge Expertise Areas Include:
- → Former government tourism ministers and national tourism board directors from 30+ countries
- → Chief executives and senior leadership from global hotel groups and independent luxury properties
- → Airline industry veterans with combined experience spanning over 200 years in aviation operations and passenger experience
- → Award-winning travel journalists and editors from leading international travel publications
- → Hospitality management professors and researchers from leading academic institutions
- → Certified sustainable tourism consultants and environmental certification specialists
- → Travel technology investors, entrepreneurs, and product directors from leading platforms
- → Luxury travel advisors managing high-net-worth client portfolios across all major travel regions
- → Destination management company specialists with deep expertise in key outbound and inbound markets
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Prof. Elena Marchetti
Hospitality Research Director
Author of 12 peer-reviewed studies on luxury hospitality experience management.
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Mark Andersen
Sustainable Tourism Expert
Former head of sustainability at a leading global hotel group with 15+ years in green travel certification.
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Capt. Ravi Patel
Aviation Industry Veteran
30 years in commercial aviation. Former VP of Operations at a major international carrier.
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Sophie Laurent
Travel Editor & Journalist
Luxury travel editor with bylines in Condé Nast Traveller, Travel + Leisure, and Forbes Travel.
Judging Criteria
Every nomination is evaluated against four core criteria, each reflecting a fundamental dimension of excellence in the global travel and hospitality industry. Understanding these criteria will help you build the strongest possible nomination for your brand.
Guest Experience & Satisfaction
The quality, consistency, and memorability of the experiences delivered to guests, passengers, or clients. Judges assess this criterion using guest review data, satisfaction scores, complaint resolution rates, service consistency across peak and off-peak periods, and the brand's demonstrated commitment to continuously improving the guest journey. Evidence might include TripAdvisor ratings, proprietary guest satisfaction surveys, mystery shopper reports, or repeat guest statistics. This criterion carries the highest weighting in our evaluation framework — because ultimately, exceptional travel is about exceptional experiences. See examples of brands that scored highly in this criterion among our past winners.
Innovation & Differentiation
How the brand distinguishes itself from its competitive set through creative offerings, unique positioning, or pioneering approaches to hospitality, service delivery, or the travel experience. Judges look for genuine novelty and differentiation — not just incremental improvements, but genuinely new approaches that expand what is possible in the brand's sector. Innovation might be technological, experiential, conceptual, or operational. What judges look for is evidence that the brand is actively shaping the future of travel in its domain, rather than simply maintaining the status quo. This criterion rewards the bold — brands that take calculated risks to deliver something genuinely new.
Brand Consistency & Service Standards
The reliability and professionalism of service delivery across all touchpoints of the guest or client experience — from the first digital interaction through to post-stay follow-up. Judges assess whether the brand's actual delivery consistently meets or exceeds the standards it promises in its marketing and brand communications. Consistency across different team members, different times of year, different operational conditions, and different client types is critical. A brand that delivers brilliantly on its best days but fails during peak season or staff turnover periods cannot be considered truly excellent. Evidence might include service standard documentation, staff training programmes, quality assurance processes, and consistent review scores over an extended period.
Sustainability & Social Responsibility
The brand's commitment to environmental stewardship, community benefit, and responsible tourism practices — and the measurable impact of those commitments. As sustainability becomes an increasingly central dimension of travel excellence, this criterion reflects the growing expectation that the world's best travel brands will lead the industry's transition to more responsible models. Judges assess environmental certifications, carbon reduction programmes, community employment and investment, supply chain ethics, waste management practices, water conservation, and the brand's overall contribution to the long-term health of the destinations and communities in which it operates. Brands that treat sustainability as a genuine commitment — not a marketing exercise — score highly.
Awards Timeline
The International Travel Awards follows a structured annual calendar designed to give nominees sufficient time to prepare strong submissions and judges sufficient time to evaluate them thoroughly. Plan your nomination well in advance of the submission close date.
Nomination Portal Opens
The nomination portal at goldentreeawards.com/award-nomination opens in January each year. Brands are encouraged to submit early to allow our team to guide them on category selection, documentation requirements, and submission strategy. Early submissions also allow for more time to strengthen a nomination if additional information is requested. All 60+ award categories are open from day one of the submission window.
Nomination Deadline
The primary nomination window closes in September. All submissions must be complete, with supporting documentation uploaded, before the deadline. Late submissions are not accepted under any circumstances to ensure fairness to all nominees. Brands that have submitted but wish to add supplementary evidence should contact our team before the deadline. Our coordination team begins preliminary review immediately after the close of submissions.
Expert Panel Evaluation
Throughout October, our 200+ strong judging panel conducts thorough evaluation of all submissions. Judges score independently, provide written commentary, and complete their assessments using our standardised evaluation framework. Our coordination team manages the aggregation of scores, identifies any outliers for review, and prepares category-level analysis to support the shortlist selection process. This is the most intensive period of the ITA calendar — and the one where our commitment to rigour is most fully demonstrated.
Shortlist Publication
Shortlisted nominees are publicly announced in November, generating significant media coverage and industry attention. Being shortlisted is itself a meaningful recognition — it confirms that your brand has been independently assessed as among the best in your category globally. Shortlisted brands are encouraged to share their status across their marketing channels and with their partners and clients. This announcement period typically generates significant media interest in the travel press globally, benefiting all shortlisted brands.
Gala Ceremony & Awards
Winners are notified privately before a public announcement and are invited to attend the annual gala ceremony in Dubai — a prestigious evening attended by the global travel industry's most respected leaders. Trophies, certificates, and digital winner's seals are formally presented at the ceremony. Winners receive their comprehensive media package and can begin displaying the ITA winner's seal across all their marketing materials immediately. The ceremony is covered by major international travel media, ensuring winners receive immediate global exposure. See our past winners for an idea of the calibre of brands we celebrate.
Transparency Commitment
Our commitment to transparency is not a marketing message — it is a structural feature of how the International Travel Awards operates. Here is how we ensure integrity at every stage.
Independent Judges
All 200+ judges are independent professionals with no commercial relationship to nominated brands. Strict conflict-of-interest policies are enforced, and judges are recused from any category where a relationship exists. Judge selection, vetting, and management is handled by our independent oversight committee — separate from commercial operations. No commercial partner, sponsor, or nominee has any influence over judge selection or the judging process.
No Commercial Influence
The commercial and editorial operations of the International Travel Awards are managed separately and operate independently of one another. Sponsorship, advertising, and commercial partnerships do not influence nomination evaluation, shortlist selection, or winner determination in any way. Nominations are accepted to cover the administrative costs of the evaluation process — but payment confers zero advantage in the judging. Awards are won on merit. Always.
Verified Submissions
All nominations are subject to verification. Claims made in submissions that cannot be substantiated by documentary evidence are not considered by judges. Our coordination team checks supporting documentation for authenticity and completeness before advancing a submission to expert panel evaluation. Brands are encouraged to provide verifiable, third-party evidence wherever possible — guest review data, industry certifications, and audited statistics carry significantly more weight than unsubstantiated claims.
Appeals Process
Any nominee who believes their submission was not evaluated in accordance with our published criteria may invoke our formal appeals process. Appeals are reviewed by an independent appeals committee that operates separately from the main judging panel. All appeals are reviewed within 30 days and applicants receive written feedback on the outcome. The appeals process is part of our structural commitment to fairness and to continuous improvement of our own evaluation processes. Contact awards@goldentreeawards.com for appeals guidance.
Judging Process Questions
Answers to the most common questions about how the International Travel Awards selects its winners.