TravelRepublic scooped the top prize at the Travolution Awards 2008 this week, winning the Online Travel Brand of the Year for the first time. The company also won Best Online Travel Agency Website at the ceremony in London on Thursday night. The event also saw BA.com win the award for Best Airline Website. Small Luxury…
Travolution Awards 2008 – The Winners
TravelRepublic scooped the top prize at the Travolution Awards 2008 this week, winning the Online Travel Brand of the Year for the first time.
The company also won Best Online Travel Agency Website at the ceremony in London on Thursday night.
The event also saw BA.com win the award for Best Airline Website. Small Luxury Hotels of the World clinched the prize for Best Hotel Website.
Full list of winners and comments from the judges:
ADVERTISING AWARDS
Best Use of Affiliate Advertising
Winner: TradeDoubler for SkyEurope
“The campaign achieved impressive results ahead of target, with excellent use of creative media patterns and creative.”
Best Use of CRM
Winner: Teletext Holidays
“With excellent and effective use of targeting and tangible results impacting directly on its customer database, this is the clear winner in the category.”
ADVERTISING EXCELLENCE AWARD
Best Use of Online Advertising
Winner: Netizen Digital for Hoseasons
“We were impressed by the way Netizen used all the latest search techniques to analyse consumer behaviour through he purchase funnel and react to the responses accordingly.”
MARKETING AND INNOVATION AWARDS
Best Use of Social Media
Winner: STA-Travel.co.uk
“A superb series of tool and methods which continue to reach its target audience in a relevant and dynamic way. Both sensible and essential use of social media.”
Best Agency for Search Engine Optimisation
Winner: BigMouthMedia for Superbreak
“BigMouthMedia has helped its client stand out in an extremely competitive marketplace by using both Long Tail techniques and focusing on the cross-media keyword campaigns.”
Best Agency for Website Design
Winner: Reactive
“The agency has an excellent breadth of scope and skills which leads to strong performance on both functional and brand-led websites.”
Highly commended: Fortune Cookie
“Excellent work across a range of sites which a particular emphasis on design for high-end, brand-focussed travel sites.”
TRAVEL AGENT AWARDS
Best Travel Agent Website
Winner: TravelRepublic
“TravelRepublic is doing all the things a travel agency site should do – and doing them extremely well. It has simple and unfussy design, the content is relevant and well-targeted, and the booking process extremely easy to use.
Highly commended: Lastminute.com
“The breadth of product is still simply fantastic and the recent redesign work has seen huge improvements to the overall usability of the site.”
Best Consolidator Website
Winner: Youtravel.com
“A good execution of a product consolidator which includes all the relevant information and product details for its target audience.”
Best Use of Technology
Winner: Eviivo
“An excellent piece of technology which values and helps the smaller players in the industry to work with the major brands. This is changing the distribution landscape for small brands.”
Highly commended: Dot2.com
“A superbly-executed and well-integrated use of existing technology and new systems to produce an innovative website for a niche audience.”
TOUR OPERATOR AWARDS
Best Tour Operator Website
Winner: Virgin Holidays
“The website gives as much flexibility of the traditional brochure and reflects the overall product range. It manages to inspire as well as include excellent additional features.
Highly commended: Exodus.co.uk
“A strong design with an interesting and innovative emphasis on the community elements associated with a niche brand.”
Best Use of Technology
Winner: Voyages Jules Verne
“A very practical and visible execution of brochure technology which has translated well to produce an excellent experience online.”
SUPPLIER AWARDS
Best Hotel Website
Winner: Small Luxury Hotels of the World
“SLH.com has managed to integrate inspirational imagery with fantastic functionality and navigation across all its hotels. There is an incredible common theme running through the site which clearly motivates but does not damage the user experience.”
Highly commended: The-Connaught.co.uk
“A well-focussed website with great photography and content to support its luxury offering.”
Best Airline Website
Winner BA.com
“A continually improving website which has excellent navigation, superb design coupled with best-in-class functionality for the user.”
Highly commended: FlySilverjet.com
“SilverJet is one of the best examples of a site which has married its brand values – in this case, high service – with an online experience to match.”
Best Car Hire Website
Winner: CarRentals.co.uk
“CarRentals wins through its convenience and breadth of choice, combining user-friendliness and a low-fuss interface.”
Best Travel Insurance
Winner: InsureMore.co.uk
“Excellent design and clean user experience, combined with upfront disclosure of prices, saw InsureMore emerge as the clear winner in this category.”
Best Use of Technology
Winner: Air France Widget
“Innovative, slick, well-designed, convenient, fun and the clear winner in the category.”
TRAVEL INFORMATION AWARDS
Best Meta Search/Price Comparison Website
Winner: Kayak
“Kayak has developed an easy-to-use interface and the user experience is supported by some incredible pieces of functionality. The site is innovative and pushing the boundaries of travel search.”
Best Travel Portal
Winner: TripAdvisor
“TripAdvisor is still the market leader in providing valuable reviews and content to an enormous cross section of consumers. The recent additions of new functionality are welcome and innovative.”
Highly commended: TravellersPoint.com
“The site is doing some fascinating work with the use of Wikis and destination content and should be applauded for its innovation.”
Best Use of Technology
Winner: Dorling Kindersley
“DK has utilised cutting edge e-publishing techniques to produce a flexible and simple service for visitors to its website. It takes the in-resort guidebook to the next level.”
SM@RT AGENT OF THE YEAR
Winner: Fleetway Travel
BEST TRAVEL CONSUMER BLOG
Winner: Travel Rants
“Darren Cronian has single-handedly set the benchmark to which other consumer-focussed blogs should aspire. Controversial, relevant, thorough and, perhaps most tellingly, much better than something mainstream media organisations are trying to achieve.”
NEWCOMER AWARDS
Best New Online Travel Company
Winner: Worldreviewer.com
“In a market increasingly crowded with new content and experience-led sites, Worldreviewer stands out a mile. It has used exclusive editorial and excellent tools to wonderful effect and ensured its commercial partnerships are relevant to the target market.”
Rising Star of the Year
Winner: Oliver Garner (TUI Travel)
ONLINE TRAVEL BRAND OF THE YEAR
Winner: TravelRepublic
TRAVOLUTION ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Recipient: Stelios Haji-Ioannou
