First annual Travelbug Awards 2011 announced

This week, Trade Me's accommodation website Travelbug, announced the first annual Travelbug Awards for 2011. The awards recognise excellent performance by accommodation operators who list on the website. The awards winners were selected based on statistics derived from the BookIt booking engine.  Criteria for judging the awards included number of bookings, quality of guest feedback, management of real-time inventory and availability.

Travelbug has the widest range of bookable accommodation in New Zealand and all properties are automatically eligible for the awards from holiday parks to hotels.

The five categories of awards presented are as follows:

Best in Region and Best in District awards are Travelbug’s highest accolade and were received by the top operator in each of Travelbug's geographic locations. To those operators who received this award, congratulations!

The Best Reviews Award is effectively judged by guests who have stayed in the properties. Operators with a 100% "thumbs up" result across a minimum number of reviews received the award. These hard working operators can proudly display the Best Reviewed 2011 award to show potential guests that their property is a great place to stay.

The Platinum Award is received by only the very best performing operators. The benchmark for this award is very high with only around 5% of properties being successful in receiving the Platinum Award, so well done to the winners! 

The Gold Award recognises excellent achievement within the judging criteria and again only awarded to the very top performers. This award was presented to properties who performed within the top 10%.

Daniel Bridges, Head of Travel at Trade Me, explains that the awards have been gratefully received by the properties.

"The response has been overwhelming. With a range of large and small properties on Travelbug, we have received some really great feedback from operators who are thrilled to be recognised for their hard work."

"To recognise the winners further, we will be adding a notice on the winners’ pages on Travelbug over the coming weeks. This will be a useful tool for visitors to Travelbug when selecting accommodation.  The team here also has some great ideas for the 2012 awards and work is underway to build on this great first round of awards." explains Daniel.

An announcement of Awards for Christchurch operators has been delayed due to the earthquake and these will be presented in the coming months.

For more information please contact support@travelbug.co.nz or call toll free on 0508 266548.

Best in District 2011 Winners