Gap Adventures Wins 6 Major Awards in Rapid Succession, Closes Out the Year Celebrating with Staff

Toronto, Canada, December 25, 2009 --(PR.com)-- Gap Adventures is proud to close out an eventful and accolade-laden year with the acceptance of six prestigious awards in just six weeks. The honours acknowledge the adventure tour operator’s leading role in the travel industry, as well as its status as one of North America’s most dynamic and socially-responsible companies.

“This tremendous, six-awards-in-six-weeks accomplishment helps us close out a productive 2009 on a very high note and is a testament to our Gappers’ hard work and dedication to customer service leadership,” Gap Adventures founder Bruce Poon Tip said. “This company was built on the notion that we could provide life-changing travel experiences in an authentic, sustainable way that bolsters a sense of global community and happiness—right now we’re celebrating the fact that our dream is being realized around the world every day.”

The prestigious accolades include:

--Condé Nast Traveler magazine’s World Savers Award, presented to Gap Adventures in the ‘Doing it all’ category by a panel of esteemed judges from the ecotourism field. The award honours the airlines, cruise lines, city hotels, resorts, hotel chains, and tour operators dedicated to saving their communities and the world

--Travel and Leisure magazine’s Global Vision Leadership Award for Gap Adventures’ outstanding work in voluntourism in developing countries around the world

--The highly-coveted World Tourism Award, for which Gap Adventures was recognized for its exemplary commitment and vision to giving back to local communities by creating the not-for-profit Planeterra Foundation, then supporting the organization through a donation-matching program. The Planeterra Foundation is dedicated to global community development through sustainable travel and voluntourism

--The Responsible Travel and Tourism Forum Leadership Award presented by Toronto-based Baxter Travel Media for the Planeterra Foundation’s work promoting sustainability across the globe

--The ‘Best Tour Operator, Adventure Travel’ award, presented by Performance Media Group in its annual Readers’ Choice survey. Winners were selected by more than 1,700 leisure travel agents across the United States who were asked to choose top suppliers and destinations based on consistent levels of service

--Deloitte and Touche, LLP named Gap Adventures one of Canada’s ‘50 Best Managed Companies’ in their annual ranking of the country’s top firms. It was the fifth straight year the adventure tour operator joined other leading-edge corporations on this exclusive list. The prestigious honour acknowledges companies operating at peak levels of business performance

To celebrate this accomplishment, Gappers' from around the world shared a toast to mark this achievement. Celebrations occurred in Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Peru, Costa Rica, Argentina and Kenya.

For more information, visit www.gapadventures.com

About Gap Adventure
Gap Adventures is a world leader in the adventure travel industry offering small group adventures on all seven continents and beyond to more than 100,000 global travellers annually. The award-winning trips, which focus on culture, nature and active travel, are ideal for those with a sense of adventure – people who want to leave the beaten path and authentically immerse themselves in a local culture or environment to experience the real world in a sustainable manner. Demonstrating its ongoing cultural, social and economic commitment to responsible tourism, Gap Adventures established the Planeterra Foundation, as a way the company and its passengers can give back to the communities visited. For more information, please visit www.gapadventures.com and www.planeterra.org.

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