Italian Costa Cruises won yesterday night the 2008 World Travel Awards. The company has been voted the best South America’s Cruise Line in a great voting campaign that reached more than 167.000 travel professionals in 198 countries. The ceremony was hosted at Intercontinental Hotel in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 21st October 2008 in a fantastic party with a lot of “samba”. The glittering ´red carpet´ event saw winners presented before the elite assembly of senior travel, tourism and hospitality executives as well as press and broadcast media.

Hailed as "the Oscar of the Travel Industry", and now in its fifteenth edition, o World Travel Awards is without doubt the most prestigious and comprehensive awards programme for the travel business, covering all sectors of the global travel, tourism and hospitality industry.

The World Travel Awards is connected with the World Travel Market and the magazine Travel Weekly who announced Mr. Foschi on Club 33. It was the first time that Costa Cruises won this award in South America. At the party there was Mr. Foschi – who came to Brazil to announce that Ibero Cruises’ coming in the season 2009/2010 – and Renê Hermann, Costa general manager at South America. To Mr. Hermann, World Travel Awards came in an excellent time: “Costa Cruises always invested a lot in Brazil and South America, and that was a sign that our efforts and services have been recognized".