Banyan Tree Hotels and Resorts won the award for Global Tourism Business in the World Travel and Tourism Council’s Tourism for Tomorrow awards announced at the WTTC summit in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Singapore-based Banyan Tree took the award for businesses employing 500-plus staff. Other awards went to smaller, local companies or organisations.
The Community Benefit Award went to the Boston-based Saunders Hotel Group in the US.
The Conservation Award was won by tourism company Inkaterra of Peru, and the Destination Stewardship award went to Destination Roros of Norway.
The annual awards are judged by a panel of independent experts which this year included Fiona Jeffery, chairman of World Travel Market, and Dr Graham Miller, head of hospitality and tourism management at the University of Surrey.
Congratulating the winners, WTTC president and chief executive David Scowsill said: “Travel and tourism is powerful enough to lead the world towards a brighter future.”
Banyan Tree Resorts began in Phuket, Thailand, with an attempt to renovate an abandoned tin mine. It now operates 30 resorts with a commitment to doing so sustainably.
Saunders Hotel Group began by converting a Boston police station into a hotel in 1986 and has branched out to support farmers’ markets and shelters for the homeless.
Destination Roros in Norway also transformed a former mining town where work ceased in the 1970s. The town is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site attracting more than one million visitors a year.
Inkaterra, founded in 1975, operates five hotels dedicated to conservation and biodiversity in the Sanctuary of Machu Picchu and Madre de Dios.