Award-Winning Stays: PH Resorts, Hotels, and Destinations That Recently Won International Recognition - Travel

Six properties in different Philippine destinations won awards from Conde Nast Traveler’s global survey with over 20,000 respondents.

Despite the pandemic, travel persisted due to those itching for a vacation after global lockdowns—even if it came with more hurdles. According to Conde Nast Traveler (CNT), 89 percent of their readers experienced airline and hotel cancellations along with postponed trips due to changing COVID restrictions.

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However, this didn’t stop global travelers from visiting distant destinations. Especially with work from home becoming a norm, people gave the digital nomad lifestyle a try and ditched their home office desks for working by seashores. 

In fact, 52 percent of CNTs survey respondents have not only considered working remotely outside their cities but are thinking about temporarily living overseas while maintaining their WFH jobs.

In line with this, Philippine resorts and hotels gained global recognition for great service and amenities amid a pandemic, from CNT’s global survey results and international awarding body and NGO Green Destinations.

Notable resorts 

In this year’s Conde Nast Readers’ Choice Awards, three Philippine resorts placed in the “Best resorts in Asia 2021” category this month. The survey was conducted with over 20,000 Conde Nast Traveler readers—with voting factors like destination, facilities, and service to consider. 

“The 2021 list reflects the places that travelers yearned for the most and the ways in which the tourism industry has slowly begun to reopen,” Caitlin Morton of CNT writes in the survey results article

In the top 20 list, Discovery Shores Boracay captured 17th place, while Shangri-La Boracay Resort & Spa got the 11th spot. And most notably, El Nido Resorts placed the highest local properties at 9th place with 98.8 percent of votes. 

Sustainability award

Club Paradise Palawan is the only Philippine resort included in the Top 100 Sustainable Stories list in a separate international awarding body focused on sustainability. The awards are given by sustainable tourism NGO Green Destinations to “showcase sustainability good practices of emerging and established destinations.”

The Coron resort’s environmental efforts include protecting marine wildlife against illegal fishers and serving dishes made from local, sustainable sources. In addition, Club Paradise joins the United Nations Campaign to Phase Out Single-Use Plastics (SUPs).

The resort uses EcoPure Water instead of bottled mineral water, and utilizes cloth laundry bags, refillable bottles for bath amenities, and replaced plastic straws with metal ones.  

From the city to island

Last month, Travel + Leisure, another publication, released its “World’s Best Lists,” where readers’ voters were tallied to arrive at a score to rank hotels, airlines, islands, and cities. The New York-based title awarded The Peninsula Manila the 25th spot with 98.40 points based on the accumulated results. Although the Makati hotel was tied with Four Seasons in Istanbul for the same rank on the “World’s Best Hotel Category.” 

Palawan also makes an appearance on Travel + Leisure’s list for “World’s Best Islands.” With a score of 88.63, the Western-Visayas destination was dubbed the 19th best island globally, while it was voted the 5th best island in Asia.

Other awarding categories from Conde Nast’s annual readers choice awards include the “best hotels” in Hong Kong, China, India, Japan, Singapore, Bangkok, and the rest of Asia.

Both Shangri-La The Fort, Manila (18th place), and Raffles Makati (9th place) are awarded in the top 20 list of the best hotels in the rest of Asia category.

Banner photo from @clubparadisepalawan on Instagram.

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