The World Travel Awards has crowned Etihad Airways as “World’s Leading Airline” for the seventh year in a row. When this news floated down to us via the AFP, it was like that moment Sebastian Vettel won his fourth F1 championship, or Michael Schumacher winning his seventh. There is something fatiguing about such overwhelming dominance and in this case, perhaps even a failure of the imagination.

To use another analogy, this reminds us of Restaurant Magazine choosing elBulli as best in the world five times – even then it was not five years running. Ok, Etihad had those gorgeous Nicole Kidman ads and the private apartments for First Class on the A380 are amazing. In fact, that is probably why, as reported previously, Etihad is also a major winner here. Thankfully, the overall winner there was a surprise.

In other news from the WTA awards, held this year in Morocco, Saudi Arabia’s Al Faisaliah Suites claimed the double honor of ‘World’s Leading Luxury Suites Hotel’ and ‘World’s Leading Hotel Penthouse’, while InterContinental Danang Sun Peninsula Resort was recognized as the ‘World’s Leading Luxury Resort’.

The Las Vegas Strip won the title of ‘World’s Leading Tourist Attraction and the Cornelia Diamond Golf Resort & Spa was named ‘World’s Leading Fully Integrated Resort’.

WTA was established in 1993 to acknowledge, reward and celebrate excellence across all sectors of the tourism industry.

For the full list of winners, go visit this website.