The city of Porto was elected for the first time “World’s Leading City Destination” at the World Travel Awards. The award was announced this Friday, at a ceremony in which the Passadiços do Paiva (Paiva Walkways) were also, once again, recognized as the “World’s Leading Adventure Tourist Attraction”.

This Friday, the city of Muscat (Oman) hosted the final gala of the 29th edition of the World Travel Awards, a ceremony in which the 2022 world winners were announced.

The company Douro Azul and the hotel Vila Galé Collection Braga were also among the nominees for this world edition.

Luís Pedro Martins, president of Turismo do Porto e Norte de Portugal, and Catarina Santos Cunha, municipal councilor and vice president of ATP, were present at the awards ceremony. The president of the region tourism considered that this was another day “that will go down in the history of the city of Porto, but also in the history of the entire region”.

“This is an award that should make us all proud. The Porto brand has an incredible capacity to attract and the entire Northern region benefits from it. I'm sure we'll all gain a lot from these distinctions. Being an important debut for Porto, I must not forget the Paiva Walkways award. Being considered the best adventure tourist attraction in the world for the fifth consecutive time says a lot about this fantastic project that is already a successful case study, replicated all over the world”.

“Several institutions from Porto and North of Portugal had already received awards in the European edition. Now, having two winners in the world edition is the icing on the cake”, Luís Pedro Martins concluded.

We should remember that, in the European edition of last October, Porto was considered “Europe's Leading City Destination”, the Paiva Walkways won the categories “Europe's Leading Tourist Attraction” and “Europe's Leading Adventure Tourist Attraction” and the Vila Galé Collection Braga received the “Europe's Leading Landmark Hotel” award.

In the Portuguese edition, three hotels in the region had also been distinguished: Hilton Porto Gaia (“Portugal's Leading City Hotel”), Sheraton Porto Hotel & Spa (“Portugal's Leading Conference Hotel”) and Boeira Garden Hotel Porto Garden, Curio Collection by Hilton (“Portugal's Leading Design Hotel”).

Also known as the Oscars of Tourism, the World Travel Awards were founded in 1993 and are one of the most prestigious international awards in the area of tourism, distinguishing cities, regions, countries, hotels and resorts, among others.