Great Barrier Reef Islands Named as World's Best Awards Winner for 2023

(Photo : Jodi Nelson / Unsplash)
The World’s Best Awards 2023 winner for the Island category is The Great Barrier Reef Islands in Australia.

A travel publication recently selected Australia's Great Barrier Reef Islands as the winner of the Islands category of the World's Best Awards 2023 after surveying its readers.

World's Best Island

Vacations on an island may be a wonderful fusion of exhilarating pursuits, sun-drenched beaches, and unique cultures. While some islands offer excursion opportunities and water sports, others provide a peaceful haven. The best islands, though, combine the two.

T+L asks readers to weigh in on travel experiences across the world every year for our World's Best Awards survey. In this case, the readers are asked to express their ideas on the best islands. The 2023 survey was completed by approximately 165,000 T+L readers, a nearly 25% increase above pre-pandemic voting levels. More than 8,500 different properties received more than 685,000 votes overall.

Islands were evaluated especially based on a number of factors, including value, people and friendliness, restaurants and food, activities and views, and natural features and beaches.

Respondents could give each trait a rating ranging from 'excellent', all the way down to 'poor', until a final score is reached.

Great Barrier Reef Islands, Australia

The Great Barrier Reef, a 1,400-mile-long UNESCO World Heritage Site off Australia's northeastern coast, has won the World's Best Awards 2023 - Island category. It has the largest concentration of coral reefs in the world-nearly 3,000 in total. Also included here are some of the 900 islands that T+L readers voted the best in the world. A frequent visitor to Hamilton Island and reader of T+L wrote the area's physical beauty as being unmatched, giving it a Reader Score of 96.11 out of 100.

Maldives, Bali, Madeira, and Phuket are the other islands joining the Great Barrier Reef Islands in the top five of the published list, Travel + Leisure reports.

Awards Through the Years

The islands of the Great Barrier Reef have won numerous honors. They were given the Prime Minister's Awards for Excellence in Public Sector Management's Gold Award in 2019. The Reef Joint Field Management Program was honored for its innovative strategy for dealing with difficulties. For promoting a healthy risk culture, the islands won the Risk Excellence Awards in 2017.

For their continuous cooperative initiative, they got the Silver and Collaboration Awards in 2015. Additionally, the Australian government received the Silver Future Policy Award from the World Future Council in 2010 for its efforts to save the reef, particularly the Representative Areas Program.

The islands have many more achievements from 2009 and earlier, the Australian Government reports.

Also Read: Delray Beach in Florida Earns Blue Flag Voluntary International Award for Complying with 33 Criteria

Travel Authority

With the most comprehensive travel lifestyle material available, Travel + Leisure is the go-to source for the discerning traveler. The joy of exploring the cultural delights the globe has to offer-from art and design to shopping and fashion to cuisine and drink-is captured in Travel + Leisure. Through its four print publications, four digital channels, the annual World's Best franchise, and other venues, Travel + Leisure engages with its audience and is a renowned travel authority, according to Cision PR Newswire.