Golden Backpack Awards in Sydney: "Best Hostel Booking Engine" goes to Hostelworld

[Hostels]

From a Hostelworld press release:

Hostelworld.com scoop “Best Hostel Booking Engine” award for 2nd year running

Dublin, Ireland – 12th November 2009 - Hostelworld.com, the market leader on online reservations to the budget, independent and youth travel market for 10 years has announced it beat off competition from Hostelbookers.com and Wotif.com amongst others to pick up the award for “Best Hostel Booking Engine” at the Golden Backpack awards in Sydney, Australia for the second year in a row.

The Golden Backpack Awards are Australia and New Zealand’s only dedicated awards for the independent travel industry. The awards are voted for by independent travellers visiting both countries and are held in extremely high esteem across the backpacking and independent travel industry.

Carmel Dunne, VP of Accommodation Relations commented on the win “We’re absolutely delighted to have picked up this award for the 2nd year running. The fact that its voted for by the public makes it extra special as we always try and go the extra mile to make sure we offer our consumers the very best”.

She continued – “Here at Hostelworld.com not only do we offer our customers an unparalleled range of choice with more hostels, destinations and availability than any other hostel booking website but we also provide them with a host of added extras, creating even more value when customers visit Hostelworld.com. The site is available in 23 languages and offers visitors the very best content including award winning video city guides and podcasts and free downloadable city guides. In addition to all this we have our very own travel social network “MyWorld”, the latest addition to the website, the Travel Store and of course over 2.7 million authentic user reviews”.

More information:
http://www.hostelworld.com/

[gordo]

theyre funny awards the golden backpacks - hostels get guests to fill out forms and theres a lot of... 'bribery' going on. here, fill in this form and get a free beer!

the place im working at now won it last year, but had it stripped from them because they were in receivership (all well and good to win an award, but pointless if youre bleeding money) and got runner up this year. though i doubt many of our guests know about the awards, let alone care.

[HostelOffice]

All HW users got sent info on how to vote for the HW Booking engine. The nature of the industry means that many that voted for HW hope that their listing will be higher ranked as a result. Hope is a good thing in this recession.

HW should have got an award for being the most accessible and easy to understand reservation system. You don't have to be the best or the cheapest if you are the most accessible.