Costa Cruises takes 'Middle East's Leading Cruise Company' award

Notes and media contacts

Costa Cruises is Italy's largest tourism group and Europe's no. 1 cruise company. For over 60 years its ships have plied the seas of the world, offering the best in Italian style, hospitality and cuisine and providing dream holidays with the utmost in terms of fun and relaxation. In 2008 Costa Cruises carried a total of over 1.2m cruise guests, a record for the European cruise industry. Its fleet has a total of 14 ships (including the Costa Pacifica to be delivered at the end of May), all flying the Italian flag, each with her own distinctive characteristics and unique style. Together each year, they offer the chance to visit some 250 separate destinations in the Mediterranean, Northern Europe, the Baltic Sea, the Caribbean, South America, the United Arab Emirates, the Far East and the Indian Ocean.

Three more new ships will be delivered by 2012. Costa Cruises has been certified by RINA (Italian Shipping Register) with the BEST4, an integrated system of voluntary certification of corporate compliance with the highest standards governing social accountability (SA 8000, issued in 2001), environment (UNI EN ISO 14001, 2004), safety (OHSAS 18001, 1999) and quality (UNI EN ISO 9001, 2000). All the ships in the Costa fleet have been assigned RINA's Green Star notation certifying that they are operated in compliance with the highest environmental protection standards. Costa Cruises is an official partner of the WWF for the protection of the Mediterranean Sea. In Mediobanca's 2008 survey of over 3700 Italian enterprises that recorded revenue of at least 50m euros the previous fiscal year, Costa Crociere S.p.A. ranks 72nd in terms of sales and 12th as regards profitability.

The World Travel Awards were established in 1993 to acknowledge, reward and celebrate the enormous achievements in all sectors of the global travel industry. Candidates for nomination are based upon the previous year's voting. This is the world's most comprehensive travel awards ceremony, with trophies awarded in all areas of the industry. Voting is cast by travel agents in over 190 countries around the world. Regional categories are broken down from the Whole World category into eight smaller areas - Africa, Asia/Pacific, Caribbean, Central&Latin America, Europe, Middle East, North America and South America. These are then further divided into all areas of the travel industry. Hundreds and thousands of votes each year are registered online at the official World Travel Awards website, with most of the leading travel internet sites offering additional online voting facilities.

For further inquiries please contact:

Eunice Lee
Marketing Manager
Pacific Asia Operations
Costa Crociere S.p.A. - P.A.O.
T: (852) 3528 5315/ 3528 5328

Lily Chiu
Assistant Marketing Manager
Pacific Asia Operations
Costa Crociere S.p.A. - P.A.O.
T: (852) 3528 5316/ 3528 5328