The shortlist has been unveiled for the 2006 TravelMole Web Awards being presented on Thursday (June 22) in London.
From over 400 nominations, four websites have been chosen for each of the 12 categories by a team of tourism MBA students at an international school in Paris headed by Liz Craig of Oneglobe Network.
The four shortlisted companies for each category are as follows:
Airlines – Easyjet, British Airways, KLM and Vueling
Travel Agency – TravelRepublic.co.uk, Beat The Brochure, Business Travel Direct, and Thomas Cook
Web Based Agency – Just Click Cruise, Lastminute, Luxury Explorer, STA Travel
Tour Operator – Thomson, Bridge and Wickers, To Escape To, Scott Dunn
Travel Management – Business Travel Direct, Cranley, Azumano Travel, TD Travel Group
Cruise and Ferry – MSC Cruises, Navigator of the Seas, Royal Caribbean International, Sea France
Technology – Dohop, MapMyHotel, Momondo, Tourist Tracks
Responsible Tourism – Explore, Responsible Travel, Worldhotel-link, Nature Southwest
Car Rental – Budget, Holiday Autos, Sixt, US Rentacar
Recruitment – C&M, AA Appointments, Monster, Reed
Hotels – AmResorts, Lions Dive and Beach Resort, MGM Grand, Myhotels
Tourist Board – Discover Ireland, Nature Southwest, TravelNT (Australia’s Northern Territory), Visitbritain
These will now be judged by a panel of experts before Thursday’s awards ceremony at the Slovak Republic Embassy.
On the judging panel are Debbie Hindle, managing director of London-based travel PR company BGB, Dr Hilary Murphy, Ecole Hoteliere, Lausanne, Switzerland, Joseph E. Buhler, executive vice-president Level 9, Connecticut, Sofia Reino, PhD student, Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh, and Reet Wiseman, vice-president, northern region and global accounts, Sabre Travel Network.
Sites will be judged on their attractiveness, simplicity of use, design, speed and how easy it is to conduct business.
Other factors being taken into consideration include search engine optimisation, site interaction, site feedback and use of technology.
Sponsors for this year’s awards include BGB, Capela Travel Marketing, CarTrawler, Complete Cruise Solution, Dataflexnet, Dolphin Dynamics, Slovakia and World Travel Market.
Shortlisted companies should contact Graham McKenzie – [email protected] – for more details of the awards ceremony.
By Bev Fearis
