SYDNEY – After long hours of scrutiny of nominations, the judges have spoken – and TravelMole can reveal the finalists in the 2010 Web Innovation Awards.
Chairman of the judging panel Ric Shreves, founder and partner of Water & Stone, said the quality of this year’s nominated companies is extremely high and those short-listed for the awards can be proud of their compelling websites.
Shreves was joined on the judging panel by Liz Craig, principal – Oneglobe Network; Joe Buhler – Buhlerworks – principal and PhocusWright – Social Web Marketing Consultant and Senior Destination Marketing Analyst for PhoCusWright; Ron Ramanan – founder & managing director GoQuo; Reece Gladstone – consultant TravelZoo; Aaron Koh – consultant and Meraj K Huda – founder/principal of Forumline.com
The short-listed websites are connected to some well-known names in the travel business as well as young, largely unknown companies who are marking their mark in a competitive and challenging environment.
Shortlisted companies range from heavyweights like Air New Zealand, Qantas and V Australia to one-person start-ups like newyoungtravel.com, which focuses on the senior (over-50s) market, and cleancruising.com, which offers new ways of searching for cruise voyages.
The winners will be announced at Travel Distribution Summit Asia in Singapore April 28-29.
Shortlisted companies:
Best Website Design
• http://www.gapadventures.com
• http://www.grabaseat.co.nz
• http://oodles.com
Travel Innovator of the Year
• http://www.cleancruising.com.au
• http://www.venuemirror.com
• http://www.passport2theworld.com
Best Travel Startup of the Year
• http://www.newyoungtravel.com.au
• http://www.urbanadventures.com
• http://www.Vaustralia.com
• http://www.venuemirror.com
Best Use of Social Media
• https://www.airpointsfairy.co.nz
• http://www.4320LA.com
• http://travelinsider.qantas.com.au/
Most Exciting New Use of Technology in Travel
• http://www.cleancruising.com.au
• http://www.urbanadventures.com
• http://www.venuemirror.com
• http://www.travelsim.net.au
Most Creative Marketing Campaign
• http://www.4320LA.com
• http://www.nothingtohide.co.nz/
• http://www.youtube.com/user/AirNZnothing2hide
• http://www.zestpj.com
• http://www.extraordinarytaxiride.com.au
Best Web 2.0 Mash Up
• http://airnz.co.nz
• http://www.zestpj.com
Most Innovative Use of Video
• http://www.cleancruising.com.au
• http://www.tvtrip.com
• http://www.youtube.com/user/AirNZnothing2hide#p/u/
Most Effective Use of Mobile Technology
• http://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/mpass
• http://www.travelsim.net.au
Best Ancillary Revenue Strategy
• http://carrental.com/RentCar/airnewzealand/index.html
• http://www.passport2theworld.com
• http://www.travelsim.net.au
