Tea Trails wins global award
Ceylon Tea Trails, the world’s first tea bungalow resort connected by
walking trails in Bogawantalawa Tea Estates, Hatton has been selected
for the TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice Award (2009) in the categories of
Best All Inclusive Hotel (World) and Best Hidden Gems (Asia).
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Ceylon Tea
Trails |
TripAdvisor is the world’s largest Travel community on the web, with
more than 32 million visitors every month, nine million members and 20
million reviews and opinions generated monthly by actual travellers who
cover more than 300,000 hotels in 30,000 destinations worldwide.
TripAdvisor is an operating company of Expedia Inc. of USA, the
world’s largest Internet based travel company.
A typical rave review of Tea Trails at tripadvisor.com said, “If you
stay in one place when in Sri Lanka, make sure this is it!” Along with
Tea Trails, only 10 hotels made it to the Best All Inclusive Hotels in
the World category. Only one other hotel in Asia made it to the list.
Vice President of global communications for TripAdvisor, Michele
Perry said, “Millions of real travellers worldwide have helped identify
these outstanding hotels, recognized for their exceptional
accommodation, service and value.”
A co-founder and Group CEO/Managing Director of Forbes and Walker
Thilan Wijesinghe said it is a remarkable achievement for a Sri Lankan
hotel to make it to the list of best hotels in the world, voted for by
actual travellers.
He also said that the hotel charges are the highest in the hill
country and the average spending of a client per day is around US $ 400.
This is as against the average daily spending of a tourist, which is
around 80 US dollars.
The significance in this award is that unlike any other worldwide
hotel awards program, actual travellers and guests at these hotels base
the “Choice Awards” on an analysis of real and unbiassed reviews and
opinions about the hotel.
Hence this is a unique achievement for a Sri Lankan hotel.
“Tea Trails must now rank as the resort that has received the most
accolades of any in Sri Lanka by the International press.”
He also said that they maintained a high occupancy last year despite
several negative factors. Most visitors to Tea Trails are from the UK.
The guests ranged from celebrities, writers, nobility, diplomats,
direct descendents of British planters and discerning Sri Lankans.
The shareholders/Directors of Tea Trails (Pvt) Ltd are Merrill
Fernando (Chairman), Malik Fernando (alternate), Nick Clayton, Thilan
Wijesinghe and Dinesh Ambani.
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