Rethymno awarded with Choice Destination Award from TripAdvisor TripAdvisor, the world's largest travel site, announced the results of its 2015 Travellers' Choice Destinations Awards, honoring the top destinations in the world, Europe and Greece as decided by millions of travelers. It's good news for Rethymno, which was named the Greece's seventh best destination. The award was presented during the World Tourism Day celebrations. Throughout the years, Rethymno has built a great amount of satisfied, loyal customers. This year 20 repeat visitors from 5 different European countries received their award from the Mayor of Rethymno Mr. Giorgos Marinakis. The award’s celebratation honors and thanks all those visitors who constantly choose Rethymno as their holiday destination. An award is also honored to an outbound market that throughout the years supports tourist businesses in Rethymno: Germany was the recipient honor for 2015. During the World Tourism Day 2015, among other activities, a special celebration was held regarding the TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice Award to the destination Rethymno. The award ceremony that was placed at the Aegean Pearl Hotel and organized by the Municipality of Rethymno and Rethymno Hotel Association. Municipal Tourist Comittee - consists of members from Regional authority of Crete, Rethymno hotel association, Rethymno’s Chamber of Commerce, Rent Room Association, Hotel Managers association, restaurants as well as bars, tour guides of Crete, and all small & medium businesses – shared the award because all their members have provided the best services and have received the best reviews from tourists who have visited their establishments or used their services during their visit in 2015. Travellers’ Choice Award winners were determined using an algorithm that took into account the quantity and quality of reviews and ratings for hotels, restaurants and attractions in destinations worldwide, gathered over a 12-month period. Local & regional representatives, the Director of GNTO in Germany Mrs. Eftychia - Christina Aivaliotou, representatives from German Tour Operators, President of Rethymno Hotel Association, as well as the representatives from Chamber of Commerce and Directors of major hotels attended the event. In his address, the Mayor of Rethymno said: “…All of you, the local entrepreneurs and operators of tourism who are constantly active for years in Rethymno, providing high quality services to our guests are the one who brought this award to our city” The Mayor of Rethymno congratulated the hoteliers and operators of the various services in the tourism for achieving such an accomplishment. He described TripAdvisor as a leading entity in how Rethymno’s guests from around the world made their choice to rank us in 7 th place among the best 10 Greek destinations. He added that it is marvelous to see that the products and services in our tourism industry are being recognized, thus meaning that Rethymno is on the right track. Speaking at the ceremony the Vice Mayor of Rethymno for Tourism, Mrs Pepi Birliraki presented all various actions the municipality of Rethymno has accomplished throughout 2015 and she mentioned that TripAdvisor is one of the principal tools that visitors use to make their choices of vacations, a mechanism that is revolutionizing the industry. “The TripAdvisor award provides adequate proof that Rethymno is at the leading edge of change and our visitors have direct access to knowledge of our tourism products and services” she said. TripAdvisor is the world’s largest travel site with 375 million unique monthly visitors , and more than 250 million reviews and opinions. In 2015, research has shown that over 70% of tourists do research online before visiting a destination and booking a hotel. TripAdvisor reviews are highly valued when booking a hotel. For more information, please visit : www.rethymno.gr Media Contact: Municipality of Rethymno Department of Tourism [email protected] About TripAdvisor TripAdvisor ® is the world's largest travel site, enabling travellers to plan and book the perfect trip. TripAdvisor offers advice from millions of travellers and a wide variety of travel choices and planning features with seamless links to booking tools that check hundreds of websites to find the best hotel prices. .