Portuguese hotel chain Vila Gale has won a prestigious World Travel Market 2015 World Travel Leaders Award in recognition of its impressive commercial success and sustained growth strategy.
Vila Gale received the coveted award today (Tuesday 3 November) at the WTM World Travel Leaders Award ceremony. The award was presented by editorial director at Publituris, Carina Monteiro and was collected by group administrator of Vila Gale, Goncalo Rebelo de Almeida.
The Awards give WTM London’s Official Media Partners – which represent key travel industry media around the world – an excellent platform to congratulate and recognise those companies and individuals which have made significant contributions to travel and tourism in their region or sector.
Three nominations from each of WTM London’s media partners were judged in September by a panel of three, consisting of an independent body, a representative of WTM and the relevant media partner.
Vila Gale’s first hotel was opened up 25 years ago in the Algarve but they’ve since realised the growth potential of other regions of Portugal, especially inland and continued to innovate and constantly improve its product.
At the beginning of 2015, Vila Gale opened up its 26th and 27th hotels in the regions of Alentejo and Douro. They also recently announced the purchase of four buildings in Cais das Pedras in Porto with an investment of seven million euros and the idea to convert them into a four-star boutique hotel. These investments have been achieved using its equity and is based on a sustained growth strategy.
The Vila Gale ‘Family’ now has around 2,500 employees, who continue to believe in the company, working with a spirit of commitment and dedication with their impact being important for the Portuguese economy.
The World Travel Leaders Award judges identified that Vila Gale’s sustained growth has been achieved without any investment help.
“This is an award that recognises impressive commercial success achieved without the backing of a big international brand,” the judges said.
Every year, World Travel Leaders Awards are presented at WTM London. The full list of 2015 winners is:
Canada: WestJet
Spain: Loro Parque Fundacion
Italy: Trenitalia
Brazil: Mr. Eloi D’Avila De Oliveira – Founder of Flytour group
Portugal: Vila Gale Hotels
Russia: Bronevik.com
India: roomsXML Solutions Limited
China: World Tourism Cities Federation (WTCF)
Travolution: Gareth Williams
USA: Arthur Frommer
TTG: G Adventures
Middle East: Air Arabia
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About World Travel Market London
WTM London, the leading global event for the travel industry, is the must-attend four-day business-to-business exhibition for the worldwide travel and tourism industry.
Almost 51,500 senior travel industry professionals, government ministers and international press, embark on ExCeL – London every November to network, negotiate and discover the latest industry opinion and trends at WTM.
WTM London, now in its 36th year, is the event where the travel industry conducts and concludes its deals. WTM 2014 will generate around £2.5 billion of travel industry contracts.
WTM London is part of Reed Travel Exhibition’s World Travel Market events, which also includes Arabian Travel Market, World Travel Market Latin America and World Travel Market Africa. www.wtmworld.com
World Travel Market Events
World Travel Market is comprised of the leading leisure travel events in the world; World Travel Market London, WTM Latin America in Sao Paulo, WTM Africa in Cape Town and Arabian Travel Market in Dubai.
New events for 2016 are WTM connect Asia and WTM connect China, which join WTM connect Ski and International Golf Travel Market. These unique one-to-one events are targeted at leisure and niche travel markets, allowing exhibitors to exclusively meet with elite hosted buyers.
The World Travel Market events are attended by the global travel and tourism industry’s senior executives to conduct business deals and discover the latest research, insight and opinion.
In 2014, the World Travel Market events facilitated around $7 billion in industry deals from negotiations between the more than 15,000 buyers, 9,500 exhibitors (1,500 main stand holders and 8,000 stand sharers) in attendance of its four events.
WTM is part of Reed travel Exhibitions, the leading events organiser in the travel industry, and is owned by the world’s leading events organiser Reed Exhibitions.
Reed Travel Exhibitions
Reed Travel Exhibitions (RTE) is the world’s leading provider of exhibitions in the travel and tourism industry. Its wide-ranging portfolio of events around the globe covers leisure travel, luxury travel, meetings, incentives and business travel, as well as golf, ski and spa travel.
RTE, which organises more than 22 events around the world, includes three divisions; World Travel Market, IBTM World and International Luxury Travel Market.
RTE is a business unit of Reed Exhibitions.
About Reed Exhibitions
Reed Exhibitions is the world’s leading events organiser, with over 500 events in 43 countries. In 2014 Reed brought together over seven million event participants from around the world generating billions of dollars in business. Today Reed events are held throughout the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Africa and organised by 41 fully staffed offices. Reed Exhibitions serves 43 industry sectors with trade and consumer events. It is part of the RELX Group plc, a world-leading provider of information solutions for professional customers across industries.