You’ve voted, we’ve counted, and here they are, the results of the 2009 Australian Gourmet Traveller Travel Awards. Winners, take a bow.
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
EXPERT PANEL AWARDS: HOTTEST INTERNATIONAL CITY
Winner: Buenos Aires
Runners-up: Shanghai; Istanbul
Paris, Venice and London are perennial favourites but our crack team also suggests it’s the time to shine for capitals as diverse as Bogotá, Abu Dhabi and Kiev. But these are tough times and we need an inspirational winner, a city that knows how to weather the worst with dignity and spirit intact. Buenos Aires is such a city. Since the Argentine bankruptcy of 2001, this remarkable capital has clawed its way back to global prominence with a tenacity and creativity rare on any continent. “Since the economic crash (and a few top-seeded ATP tennis players), interest in Argentina has been snowballing,” says our judge and BA-phile Karla Courtney, online editor at Qantas Travel Insider. “The number of boutique hotels, hip bars and quirky shops has risen dramatically and the new Sydney-Buenos Aires direct flight has made it all the more accessible.”
PHOTOGRAPH KARLA COURTNEY
Hunter Valley Cooperage, NSW
Hunter Valley Cooperage, NSW
READERS’ CHOICE AWARDS: BEST HOSTED ACCOMMODATION (B & B)
Winner: Hunter Valley Cooperage, NSW
Runners-up: Cotterville, Vic; Ooraminna Station Homestead, NT
Given the wealth and diversity of B & Bs in this country, it can seem impossible to single out just one, but your votes placed this charming Hunter Valley winery well ahead of the rest. Hosts Gay and Warren Cooper have created a unique getaway where guests at their Kelman Vineyards Estate can join the grape-stomping celebrations each February or experience its annual olive harvest instead. The main guesthouse comprises suites with pergola-covered decks overlooking rolling vines, while a private studio is ideal for honeymooners. The three-bedroom Lumberjack Cottage, hand-made with Australian hardwoods, makes an inviting weekender for families or groups.
Intrepid Travel
Intrepid Travel
EXPERT PANEL AWARDS: BEST TOUR OPERATOR
Winner: Intrepid Travel
Runners-up: Abercrombie & Kent; Peregrine Adventures
Home-grown outfit Intrepid Travel launched in 1989, from humble beginnings, and now offers more than 400 journeys in 90 destinations. Common to all its adventures are cultural immersion, great food, experienced guides and environmentally and socially responsible travel. Intrepid is an industry leader in innovation; its research and development department The Travel Lab last year launched Cargo Cruising, a series of voyages aboard cargo ships to ports as exotic as Koper and Dakar. Through its non-profit foundation, Intrepid gives back to the communities it visits, investing up to $300,000 a year in long-term projects in health and education, human rights and environmental protection. And, from next year, the company aims to be carbon neutral. That’s the mark of a true trailblazer.
Tourism Queensland
Tourism Queensland
EXPERT PANEL AWARDS: BEST TOURISM INNOVATOR
Winner: Tourism Queensland’s Hamilton Island promotion
Runners-up: Baird Bay Ocean Eco Experience, SA; Ian Johnstone, Maria Island Walk, Tas
In the current economic climate, Australia’s tourism operators need all the free publicity they can get – which is why Tourism Queensland takes out the top prize here. It’s been estimated that TQ has garnered more than $100 million in publicity from its “Best Job in the World’ campaign, a cheeky, headline-grabbing stunt that inspired more than 34,000 people to apply for a six-month, $150,000 “job” as a caretaker to the islands of the Great Barrier Reef. The position, advertised in media around the world and won by 34-year-old Brit Ben Southall, sought a suitable candidate to “feed the fish, clean the pool and collect the mail” while living a dream life in a luxury three-bedroom beachfront villa on Hamilton Island.
Bamurru Plains
Bamurru Plains
EXPERT PANEL AWARDS: BEST ECO-TOURISM
Winner: Wild Bush Luxury
Runners-up: Maria Island Walk, Tas; Montague Island, NSW
The strength of talent in this category is written in its top three. But Wild Bush Luxury trumps the category this year with its portfolio of properties in some of our most fragile beauty spots. Among them is Sal Salis, an African-style safari camp in WA’s Cape Range National Park, with ringside access to Ningaloo Reef’s whale sharks. Bamurru Plains is a glamorous outback address (next door to Kakadu) where guests stay in five-star comfort on a working buffalo station beside the Mary River floodplains. Wild Bush Luxury also showcases World Heritage wilderness through its Blue Mountains Private Safaris, and later this year it will relaunch the award-winning Arkaba Station in the Flinders Ranges.
PHOTOGRAPH ANSON SMART
Southern Ocean Lodge, Kangaroo Island, SA
Southern Ocean Lodge, Kangaroo Island, SA
EXPERT PANEL AWARDS: BEST NEW HOTEL/RESORT/LODGE
Winner: Southern Ocean Lodge, Kangaroo Island, SA
Runners-up: Qualia, Hamilton Island and Emporium Hotel, Brisbane (tie).
It’s only when you’re combing a 20-strong list of the most impressive hotel openings of the year that you realise how dynamic and ambitious our tourism industry is. James and Hayley Baillie’s Southern Ocean Lodge combines glorious isolation and contemporary luxury on the natural wonderland of Kangaroo Island. Highlights of their stunning $17 million citadel include the 21 cliff-top suites with Southern Ocean outlooks, sophisticated cuisine from chef Tim Bourke and a commitment to preserving the fragile ecology of its location. The Baillies have not only created a landmark new Australian resort but also brought Kangaroo Island, our very own Galápagos, to the attention of the world.
Port Arthur Historic Site, Tas
Port Arthur Historic Site, Tas
EXPERT PANEL AWARDS: BEST HERITAGE TOURISM
Winner: Port Arthur Historic Site, Tas
Runner-up: Q Station, Manly, NSW
Our lifestyle, people and natural riches now inspire the world, but the winner of this category remembers the darker episodes in our nation’s past. This beautiful site is a place of tremendous suffering that has scarred the national psyche twice – as a convict hell in the early 1800s and again in the 1996 Port Arthur massacre. This is unsettling history and yet the site’s displays of penal hardship and its poignant memorial to the 35 who died on 28 April 1996 provide compelling insight into a bitter heritage. It deserves our recognition for dealing with such confronting stories so sensitively, and its staff, some of whom lived through Port Arthur’s modern horror, deserve our praise for their commitment to one of our most moving pilgrimage sites.
PHOTOGRAPH TASMANIA TOURISM
Palazzo Versace, Gold Coast, Qld
Palazzo Versace, Gold Coast, Qld
READERS’ CHOICE AWARDS: NESPRESSO BEST LARGE LUXURY HOTEL
Winner: Palazzo Versace, Gold Coast, Qld
Runners-up: The Langham, Melbourne, Vic; Park Hyatt, Sydney, NSW
We’re going to have to start an all-star roll to honour the operators who sweep their category every year, like the gilt and marble marvel that is Palazzo Versace. Last year it was voted best luxury hotel; this year it scoops the prize for best large luxury hotel, proving that, as Australians, we like lashings of gold leaf in our accommodation. This palace to the stars epitomises the ultimate indulgent escape with its exclusive furnishings from the House of Versace, 28 swimming pools, and a 750kg foyer chandelier that once graced the State Library of Milan. The world’s first fashion-branded hotel, opened in 2000, blends Italian Renaissance and Baroque styles to create art through architecture, as the late Gianni Versace might say.
wotif.com
READERS’ CHOICE AWARDS: FAVOURITE TRAVEL WEBSITE
Winner: wotif.com
Runners-up: tripadvisor.com; lonelyplanet.com
Australians spend more than a billion dollars each year booking hotels online and about 40% of those bookings are made at wotif.com. Pioneering Queensland businessman Graeme Wood co-founded the site in 2000; today it sells more than 11,000 properties in 45 countries, from Myanmar to the Czech Republic. The idea and its execution are simple: get major hotel chains (more than 50, at last count) to offload unsold rooms at a discount, display the last-minute deals on an online matrix so users can instantly compare hotels and prices, and offer 24-hour customer service backup. It’s like an accommodation stock market, with demand driving the bottom line and bargains to be had. It is by far the most popular hotel booking site in Australasia, and now has branches in the UK, Canada, Malaysia and Singapore.
Changi, Singapore
Changi, Singapore
READERS’ CHOICE AWARDS: FAVOURITE WORLD AIRPORT
Winner: Changi, Singapore
Runners-up: Dubai; Chek Lap Kok (Hong Kong)
It might seem a bit too obvious that Changi would win this category. After all, it’s the international airport Australians are most likely to pass through when we head overseas. But familiarity is not always an asset in a popularity contest like this. We’re lucky that our closest major international airport is also one of the world’s finest – not simply an airport but a global service station equipped with everything the harried traveller could wish for. Swimming pool? Check. Transit hotel? Check. Napping areas and express immigration clearance? Check. Not to mention notoriously good shopping, the world’s only airport butterfly garden, and shower, spa and gym lounges. Not only is it the best airport in the world, it’s also the most comfortable. Or maybe they’re the same thing.
Salus Spa, Lake House, Daylesford, Vic
Salus Spa, Lake House, Daylesford, Vic
READERS’ CHOICE AWARDS: BEST SPA/HEALTH RETREAT
Winner: Salus Spa, Lake House, Daylesford, Vic
Runners-up: Qualia, Hamilton Island, Qld; Hepburn Bathhouse & Spa, Vic
Much has been written about the mesmerising cuisine and wine cellar at Daylesford’s landmark Lake House hotel, but much less about the fact that it also has an excellent spa. The best in Australia, according to our readers, and who are we to argue? Daylesford and Hepburn have the highest concentration of mineral springs in the country and they’ve been soothing visitors for more than a century, so it’s only natural Lake House’s Salus Spa should shine. Anyone who’s immersed themselves in Salus’s tree-house spas amid the waterfront willows and simmered in the local spring waters (Wombat Flat spring runs beneath the hotel and is said to be the sweetest) will attest to the healing powers of a dip here.
Orion Expedition Cruises
Orion Expedition Cruises
READERS’ CHOICE AWARDS: BEST CRUISE LINE
Winner: Orion Expedition Cruises
Runners-up: Princess Cruises; Cunard
Former Cunard executive Sarina Bratton really knew what she was doing when she launched Orion’s brand of intrepid luxury onto the high seas in 2004. She created a uniquely Australian brand of cruising, where adventure is everything but a certain standard of lavish is also required. This is not cruising for wimps; the Orion’s itineraries take it to the Trobriand Islands, West Timor, Antarctica and many other exotic ports. The ship carries an elite cargo of a maximum 106 guests in 53 ocean-view suites and state rooms, attended by 75 crew members. Wherever they are, guests can be assured of ample champers, fine dining by Serge Dansereau of The Bathers’ Pavilion fame, and enough resident experts to answer your every burning question. Orion’s got beauty and brains. How very Australian.
Qualia, Hamilton Island, Qld
Qualia, Hamilton Island, Qld
READERS’ CHOICE AWARDS: BEST RESORT ACCOMMODATION
Winner: Qualia, Hamilton Island, Qld
Runners-up: Cable Beach Club, WA; Emma Gorge Resort, El Questro, WA
When it first opened, Qualia looked like a contender for best resort in the Queensland islands. Now it’s clear it can hold its own among the world’s best. Billionaire Bob Oatley’s dream of opening an exclusive, adults-only pleasure palace in the hub of the Whitsundays was a sun-stroke of genius. Who wouldn’t want to escape to a sanctuary of timber and stone pavilions – many with infinity-edge plunge pools and views of the Coral Sea – on a private corner of Hamilton Island? With WiFi and iPods, plasma screens and 150 movies, there’s little chance you’ll be starved of things to do. But just in case, there’s a raft of activities to stir the senses, such as helicopter rides over the archipelago, diving and parasailing.
PHOTOGRAPH JASON LOUCAS
Cradle Mountain Lodge, Tas
Cradle Mountain Lodge, Tas
READERS’ CHOICE AWARDS: BEST LODGE
Winner: Cradle Mountain Lodge, Tas
Runners-up: Silky Oaks Lodge, Qld; Southern Ocean Lodge, SA
Perched high on the edge of the national park of the same name, Cradle Mountain Lodge is another inductee onto our honour-roll of repeat winners. Not only did it scoop the Best Lodge prize again, it did so with the largest winning margin of any contest this year. This landmark lodge has a range of accommodation from rustic log cabins to decadent suites, a popular restaurant and tavern and a dreamy spa set above the Pencil Pine Creek. But, as with the best lodges anywhere, this one’s most compelling feature is its backyard, the internationally acclaimed and protected Cradle Mountain-Lake St ClairNational Park.
www.cradlemountainlodge.com.au
PHOTOGRAPH GEOFFREY CHANG
Anangu Waai, NT
Anangu Waai, NT
READERS’ CHOICE AWARDS: BEST INDIGENOUS TOURISM EXPERIENCE
Winner: Anangu Waai, NT
Runners-up: Kooljaman at Cape Leveque, WA; Guurrbi Tours, Qld
A culture that only a generation ago was undervalued is now one of the country’s biggest tourist drawcards, and the calibre of companies interpreting ancient Australia is world-class. The Uluru-based Anangu Waai has won this award for the third year, a tribute to their focus on promoting Anangu cultural, social and environmental values. Small group tours conducted in the Anangu’s native language unlock the secrets of Uluru, from ancient rock paintings in caves at the base of the rock to the traditional skills that are the hallmark of life in the Red Centre. The Anangu’s intricate knowledge of the land and the opportunity for visitors to hear those stories first-hand have established this operator as one of the country’s best exponents of indigenous culture.
Orion Expedition Cruises
Orion Expedition Cruises
READERS’ CHOICE AWARDS: BEST ADVENTURE TOURISM
Winner: Orion Expedition Cruises
Runners-up: Cradle Mountain Walk, Tas; Aurora Expeditions
To win once in the GT Travel Awards is a triumph. To win twice in the same year is a record. The pacesetting Orion has claimed the title by being named both Best Cruise Line and Best Adventure Tourism operator. Adventure tourism is the cornerstone of any visit to Australia and there are many remarkable companies selling home-grown excitement to international visitors. But when Orion Expedition Cruises debuted in 2004, it upped the ante with the opulence of its offering. This floating expedition ship explores some of the world’s most inhospitable but fascinating environments in five-star comfort. A visit to any of its ports of call – the Antarctic, the Spice Islands, Papua New Guinea and Arnhem Land, among others – is a lesson in how to see the world in style.
Emporium Hotel, Brisbane, Qld
Emporium Hotel, Brisbane, Qld
READERS’ CHOICE AWARDS: BEST SMALL LUXURY HOTEL
Winner: Emporium Hotel, Brisbane, Qld
Runners-up: Islington, Hobart, Tas; Lake House, Daylesford, Vic
The Queensland capital has swapped brash for flash with the opening of Emporium Hotel, an art-filled sanctuary for city slickers that dazzles with its fresh global style. This is the calibre of design hotel where every light fitting, every piece of furniture and every work of art is, er, a work of art. The Emporium’s sexiest attribute? Cool-hunters are torn between the sultry onyx cocktail bar and the rooftop pool terrace with sauna and Italian glass mosaic tiles lining the pool. The 102 studio suites are a study in mod cons with massive plasma screens and wireless internet, Molton Brown toiletries and the all-important pillow menu. The only downside to staying here is that you will, one day, have to leave.
PHOTOGRAPH SHARYN CAIRNS
Sea World Resort & Water Park, Main Beach, Qld
Sea World Resort & Water Park, Main Beach, Qld
READERS’ CHOICE AWARDS: GETAWAY BEST FAMILY EXPERIENCE
Winner: Sea World Resort & Water Park, Main Beach, Qld
Runners-up: Sovereign Hill, Vic; Australia Zoo, Qld
To remain at the top of your game after two decades in the cutthroat business of family holidays is no mean feat. Sea World Resort on the Gold Coast has managed to do so by constantly upgrading its facilities and introducing new attractions to keep children – and their parents – amused time and again. The freshest drawcards at Australia’s first and only theme park resort are a $1 million onsite water park and refurbished restaurants, but the essence of this fun family experience remains the same. Where else in Australia can you wake up to sharks and polar bears (almost) on your doorstep? Or enjoy an exclusive and intimate breakfast meeting with a crowd of friendly seals and dolphins?
Wilson Island, Qld
Wilson Island, Qld
READERS’ CHOICE AWARDS: BEST ECO-TOURISM EXPERIENCE
Winner: Wilson Island, Qld
Runners-up: Freycinet Experience Walk, Tas; Maria Island Walk, Tas
This delicious dot on the Great Barrier Reef is a pin-up for sustainable holidays. Guests at the deluxe tented camp, maximum capacity 12, share the remote coral cay with turtles and birds, and an ocean teeming with exotic life forms. In fact, the animals have the upper hand here. For one month a year (late January to the end of February) Wilson Island is closed to humans so wedge-tailed shearwater mutton bird chicks can hatch in peace. Desert island meals, served in The Longhouse open to breezes off the Coral Sea, are surprisingly sophisticated. Otherwise living conditions are suitably spare: solar-powered showers, designer tents, and nature in all her glory.
