New Delhi : To celebrate the five trendsetting years in the South Asian region, TRAVEL + LEISURE India & South Asia announced the results of its 1st edition of the ‘India’s Best Awards’ at Kamal Mahal, ITC Maurya, New Delhi on 17th Feb’12. The polling was conducted as a reader’s poll both through the magazine and online in 2011, and culminated in the first announcement of its winners. 49 awards across 29 different categories that range from the best country, emerging destination, cruise, business hotel, airport, luxury train, destination spa and honeymoon destinations in India and across the world, were felicitated by eminent personalities like         Mr. R. H. Khwaja- Secretary Minister of Tourism; Ms. Ruby Dhalla- Canadian politician of Indian origin; Designer Rohit Bal; Ms. Aarti Surendranath-Film producer and many others.

On this occasion CEO and Publisher Piyush Sharma said “In a short span of five years, Travel + Leisure India & South Asia has established itself as the most credible publication in the travel and luxury space, much in line with its worldwide positioning. It is great for us to now announce the launch edition of the much-awaited and most coveted T+L India’s Best Awards which reinforces T+L’s leadership position,”

“Travel + Leisure India & South Asia was the first international title to launch in the Indian subcontinent in September 2006, and we felt that the time was right to conduct our first readers poll awards as over 500,000 readers have been reading our magazine for over five years and we were sure that the results would be very authentic and credible,” says Payal Kohli, Editor-in-Chief, Travel + Leisure India & South Asia. “We are very excited to award the winners in our inaugural Awards ceremony today in the presence of so many important dignitaries, members of the travel fraternity and also with Nancy Novogrod, Editor-in-Chief, Travel + Leisure, who was also here in Delhi when we launched the magazine over five years ago, and has been a mentor for us through the years.”

Rajasthan was the biggest winner winning in three different categories as best cultural, heritage and honeymoon destination. Dubai and Mumbai top the list in the best party destinations in the world and India respectively. Odisha and Turkey have been voted best emerging destinations while Singapore scores as the best city in the world for Indian travellers and Hong Kong is the stopover of choice for family travel. ITC Maurya, New Delhi was a favourite with women travellers and Delhi won the best food destination award.