LONDON - Drawing on millions of customer reviews, today Booking.com announced it will present 1,147,344 Traveller Review Awards for 2021, recognising accommodation partners across 220 countries and territories, including 48,649 UK winners, who made travel experiences more memorable for travellers. The breadth and spread of winners in the Awards' ninth year is a testament to Booking.com's partners' dedication and resilience, as they managed to provide incredible travel experiences amidst a year of untold challenges for the entire industry.
Many destinations continued to deliver amazing service in 2020, despite the difficulties that it presented. The countries with the most winners for 2020 include the likes of: United Kingdom (48,649), Spain (81,341), USA (43,572), Italy (151,801), Croatia (52,992) and Germany (63,829) amongst other countries.
As an extension of the Awards, Booking.com is also uncovering:
The Most Welcoming Places in the UK
The Most Welcoming Regions on Earth
The key attributes of a great stay
The Most Welcoming Places in the UK
The Most Welcoming Places in the UK, according to customer reviews, touch every corner of the nation, including beach escapes and nature reprieves as well as towns and cities offering big time culture.
The top 10 list* includes:
Enniskillen, County Fermanagh
Fort Augustus, Highlands
Kirkwall, Orkney
Frome, Somerset
Drumnadrochit, Highlands
Douglas, Isle of Man
Stirling, Central Scotland
Sidmouth, Devon
Ballycastle, County Antrim
Glastonbury, Somerset
To discover more about these incredible destinations, click here.
Rook Lane House
The Most Welcoming Regions on Earth
Based on the share of properties receiving a Traveller Review Award 2021, Booking.com can reveal the Most Welcoming Regions on Earth for travellers to experience the best in hospitality and friendliness whenever it's safe again to do so. From Taitung County (Taiwan) and Tasmania (Australia) to PreSovsky kraj (Slovakia) and Oberosterreich (Austria) to Nova Scotia (Canada) and Iowa (United States) to Chubut (Argentina) and Minas Gerais (Brazil), these places reveal hospitality can be found in every corner of the globe.
Essential Attributes of a Great Stay
This year's awards also reveal insights into traveller preferences throughout the past year, and can uncover that British travellers appreciate staff, cleanliness and location most when reviewing award-winning properties on the platform, with those attributes scoring highest among the categories that travellers rate following their stay.
These preferences are consistent with global trends. With consumers increasingly conscious of health and hygiene, notably, on average, winners had a cleanliness score that was 17% higher than the average cleanliness score for non-winners, suggesting it may be a differentiator for a more perfect welcome.
Homes, Apartments and Unique Places Remain UK Traveller Favourites
While hotels remained the second most-awarded accommodation type globally for 2021, for the fourth consecutive year, four out of the five top-awarded accommodation types globally are unique places to stay: Apartments (484,243), hotels (175,748), holiday homes (123,145), guest houses (94,003), bed and breakfasts (78,903). The most-awarded accommodation types in the UK for 2021 include apartments, holiday homes, bed and breakfasts and guest houses.**
With alternative accommodations accounting for 30% of all new bookings in the third quarter of 2020, Booking.com is proud to offer so many unique stay experiences bringing superior hospitality to travellers.
Transport Partners Kept Travellers Moving
Recent Booking.com research shows that 11% of Brits have taken a road trip in 2020 and 25% of Brits travelled more domestically in 2020 when compared to 2019.***. As road trips and domestic travel became more common over the last year, Booking.com understands the immense undertaking that its transport partners faced including increased customer demand in certain markets and swift introduction of increased cleanliness measures, provision of masks and sanitisers and minimising customer contact and social distancing, among other initiatives.
This year, 2,100 rental car pick-up locations available on Booking.com, which offers rental cars in 160 countries worldwide, have been awarded. The top-awarded car rental pick-up locations globally include Christchurch Airport (New Zealand), Coolangagtta Gold Coast Airport (Australia), Phuket Airport (Thailand), Queenstown Airport (New Zealand), Orlando International Airport (United States), Tenerife Airport North (Spain), Thessaloniki Airport (Greece), Santorini Airport (Greece), Paphos Airport (Greece) and Larnaca Airport (Cyprus).
Airport taxis, which are available in over 800 destinations globally, are also being recognised for their outstanding service, with 2,830 drivers across 18 providers winning Traveller Review Awards.
'As trips became fewer and further between, each and every trip meant more to travellers than ever before, and it has become even more important to celebrate the outstanding service that the Traveller Review Award winners displayed during a year like no other,' said Arjan Dijk, SVP and Chief Marketing Officer for Booking.com. 'On our mission to make it easier for everyone to experience the world, our partners play such an impactful role in delivering amazing experiences to travellers and I know that with their tenacity, partnership and passion, we can rebuild travel together, and help more and more travellers to rediscover our beautiful world over time.'
About Booking.com:
Part of Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: BKNG), Booking.com's mission is to make it easier for everyone to experience the world. By investing in the technology that helps take the friction out of travel, Booking.com seamlessly connects millions of travellers with memorable experiences, a range of transportation options and incredible places to stay - from homes to hotels and much more. As one of the world's largest travel marketplaces for both established brands and entrepreneurs of all sizes, Booking.com enables properties all over the world to reach a global audience and grow their businesses. Booking.com is available in 44 languages and offers more than 28 million total reported accommodation listings, including more than 6.5 million listings of homes, apartments and other unique places to stay. No matter where you want to go or what you want to do, Booking.com makes it easy and backs it all up with 24/7 customer support.
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