We are very pleased to announce the winners of our 2016 Experts’ Choice Awards. This year, we are recognizing over 5,000 of the best hotels, restaurants and tourist attractions around the world.

Experts’ Choice is an entirely new kind of award. It is based on reviews written by professionals for major travel guides, magazines, newspapers, and other respected publications. At TripExpert, we bring together these reviews and provide a snapshot of what the experts think are the best places to stay, eat, and visit.

How are the winners chosen?

Experts’ Choice Awards recognize businesses that have outperformed their peers, as reflected in reviews from our 70+ source publications. In general, winners have received a TripExpert Score in the top 30% of comparable venues. (In some destinations with a very large number or quality of venues, more than 30% receive the award.)

In calculating each venue’s TripExpert Score, we take into consideration how many publications have recommended it, what they’ve said about it, and what score or rating they’ve given it. Our algorithm also makes a number of important adjustments; for example, to account for the fact that outstanding but relatively new businesses may not yet have been extensively reviewed.

Our research shows that aggregating professional reviews produces much more reliable results than user review sites.

Who are the winners?

Our 5,000 winners cover four continents and over 80 countries, and include hotels, restaurants and tourist attractions. The hotel winners range the full spectrum of lodgings from major luxury hotel chains to five-room family-owned boutiques; our restaurants range from Michelin-starred fine dining establishments to food trucks and “hole-in-the-wall” eateries. In the tourist attraction category, there are museums, parks, historical buildings, and just about anything else that’s worth visiting.

Although Experts’ Choice winners are diverse, they all share one thing: they have received high praise from expert reviewers. Some of our winners have been recommended in as many as 30 different publications, often including not only travel guides and magazines but also local, national and international press.

To find Experts’ Choice winners, look for the badge on TripExpert.com.

What happens next?

We will be publishing a series of posts over the coming months profiling some of our winners. If your business has won the award, we encourage you to add one of our Experts’ Choice badges to your site, which can help you convert visitors into paying customers. We are also happy to work with you to prepare a press release or other media material. Please contact Chris Blume.

Congratulations to all the winners!