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Feefo is working hard to be the world's most trusted supplier of ratings and reviews to registered merchants and to consumers. This means generating genuine feedback that businesses and consumers can rely on.
The Experience Oz Best in Travel Experiences Awards pay tribute to the enormous contributions and efforts made by Australia's tourism operators in the tours and activities sector. These awards provide the opportunity to publicly acknowledge and showcase some of the finest operators within 12 major individual categories throughout the country, with a diversity of verticals ranging from day tours, to activities, to family attractions, cruises and a number of other key genres within the overall Tours and Activities umbrella.
Chosen from our extensive network of over 2,500 tour and attractions businesses throughout Australia, these awards recognise not only the raw excellence of select tourism product across the country, but also the accessibility of that product both to the domestic Australian community and the rest of the world via a mixture of direct and online channels.
As a consumer, you can have confidence that each of the below providers will offer a high quality travel experience - regardless of destination.
View aims, criteria & more below.
Aims & Objectives
The Experience Oz Best in Travel Experiences Awards aim to:
Publicly recognise and reward excellence throughout the Tours and Activities sector of the Australian tourism industry
Shine a spotlight on those operators who are examples of industry best practices (particularly online)
Reinforce the value of Tour and Activities operators to the Australian tourism industry as a whole
Serve as a testimonial for aspiring customers during consideration of booking Australian tourism product
Highlight the importance of modern technological development/capability among the Tours & Activities sector
Strengthen consumer confidence in the Tours & Activities sector as a key part of the overall travel experience
Criteria
These awards are based on a combination of weighted factors including:
1. Customer Review Scores
An aggregation of feedback obtained from the public through both our direct-to-consumer and B2B (post-arrival) platforms. This is judged on a mixture of both qualitative and quantitative bases.
2. Quality of Media
As visually showcasing tourism product is a key factor in influencing traveller behaviour both pre-arrival and in-destination, this factor looks at the quality of elements such as imagery, videos, designed graphics and other sensory display items that help demonstrate tour and activity product prior to booking.
3. Booking Capabilities
As consumers shift their focus towards booking tours & activities product more and more online and pre-arrival, functionality that helps smooth this booking process becomes crucial. This factor looks at features that aid this process including providing live availability, plentiful booking inventory, technological reliability, and various other elements.
4. Value / Quality of Life Inclusions
Rather than focusing purely on price and creating a "discount culture", this factor instead takes into account overall value of tours & activities product including extras such as merchandise, photography packs, accommodation transfers, meals and other augmentations that help make for a robust travel experience.
5. Uniqueness of Experience
As Australia is home to some of the most unique natural and man-made environments on Earth, this factor takes into account some of the logistical factors that tour & activities operators grapple with to provide amazing experiences. If the tour/attraction/activity is one-of-a-kind or otherwise rare in its offerings and creates a "must-do" element, this also plays a factor in its desirability.
6. Internal Data & Booking Volume
In addition to the above factors, we also take into account data from the millions of travellers who visit Experience Oz and partner platforms each year. This includes a combination of popularity of product, search volume, raw booking data, and quantity of customers (PAX) actually taking part in a tour or activity through our various channels as an indicator of experience desirability.
Categories
Award winners are organised by category that best reflects their core business.
This category encompasses thrillseeking, adrenaline, heights and other unique adventure activities available across Australia that require physical exertion in some form.
This category encompasses "activity" experiences (requiring either physical exertion or motion in some form) that are particularly suitable for those looking to participate with children in tow.
This category encompasses one-of-a-kind attractions that blend together a unique mixture of either views, content, environment or other factor that cannot be replicated elsewhere in Australia.
This category showcases the best river/waterway sightseeing cruises with an emphasis on views, scenery or aquatic transportation with sights as an added drawcard.
This category showcases the best attractions, tours or activities with an educational, historical or cultural component that are both entertaining and informative.
This category encompasses airborne experiences in all forms of transportation including helicopter, light aircraft, hot air balloon and other miscellaneous aerial activities.
This category encompasses tours which extend to include either an overnight stay, or multiple day itineraries before returning to the origin destination.
This category is a selection of some of the premier tours which must be 12 hours or less in length, and ensure that participants end up back where they started after completion.
Have your say on the top experiences - and WIN your pick!
Vote for your Top Experiences
In addition to our individual category awards, it's also time for you, the public, to have your say. Cast your vote for the most desirable experience from the award-winners above, and we'll select one voter from each category to join the winning operator on their experience! Our People's Choice segment is an independent process and will come down to consumer choice with the aim to connect travellers with these many excellent operators to sample their top-notch experiences firsthand.
Experience Oz is an Australian online travel publisher and direct booking agent of TicketMates Australia, a long-running booking agent for tours and attractions experiences in over 50 regions all over Australia and New Zealand.
Through direct relationships with thousands of tour operators across both countries, we remain both connected to and passionate about the ANZ tourism industry, with a specific focus on the experiences that make for the essential backbone of travel adventures.
It's our belief that the role that experiences can often play as the driving force for travel in general is underrated, whether it be exploring incredible natural wonders, gaining insight into history and culture, or simply enjoying entertainment with friends and family. It's these experiences - not the flights, nor the hotel - which people will be sharing with others years to come.
"Experiences create conversation and storytelling; they can be shared with friends, and unlike possessions which can be replaced, memories made of your experiences cannot. They can lead to a healthier life, you don't need to upgrade them, and they get better over time. Things may last longer initially, but it's the memories of your experiences which will linger for the years and decades to come."
- The Experience Oz team on Experiences, Not Things
View more information on these award-winning operators and their incredible experiences by visiting Experience Oz below.
