Lemon Tree Hotels and Tren Ecuador have been announced as the joint-overall winners of the 2016 World Responsible Tourism Awards at WTM London.
Judges were unable to chose between the two from a list of 13 worldwide finalists across five categories in the awards, which are sponsored by Belize.
Tren Ecuador, which also took the Gold in the ‘Best for Poverty Reduction and Inclusion’ category, was praised for reversing the traditional approach of heritage and luxury train travel, a model where the guests usually remain cocooned on the train, isolated from the places they pass through.
Meanwhile, Lemon Tree Hotels in India won ‘Best Accommodation for Responsible Employment’ category with its core programme to help Indians with physical and intellectual disabilities, or from socially-excluded groups, to get jobs.
Professor Harold Goodwin, chair of the judging panel, said: "The judges hold Tren Ecuador up as an outstanding, holistic example of how all tours should be designed, and feel that if all tourism was planned in this way it would be very effective at making better places in which to live, as well as better places to visit.
"Lemon Tree Hotels are recognised for tackling, effectively, a major social problem in so many societies. A large corporate business backed by international investors successfully getting disabled and other opportunity-deprived people into the workforce in tourism and making this a core part of their operations is a powerful statement."
