Cost is one of the first questions any business asks before entering a hospitality award — and the honest, complete answer for every programme under Hospitality Awards is that nomination costs nothing at all. There is no entry fee, no tiered package to compare, and no hidden charge waiting once you start the form. This guide explains exactly what "free" means in practice, why it works this way, and what happens if your nomination goes on to win.
There are two things worth understanding clearly: submitting a nomination is free, and being evaluated by the independent jury is free. Neither step, nor any step in between, ever requires payment — across International Travel Awards, International Spa Awards, International Restaurant Awards and World GM Awards alike.
Nomination Is Completely Free
Submitting a nomination in any category, across any of the four Hospitality Awards programmes, costs nothing. There is no application fee, no processing charge and no minimum spend required to be considered by the independent jury. This applies whether you are entering a single category or several, and whether you are nominating your own organisation or someone else's.
Free to Enter, Free to Be Judged
Free nomination is not a limited "basic" tier that gets a lighter form of consideration — every entry, at no cost, receives the same full evaluation: an independent jury scoring the submission against six published, weighted criteria (service excellence, quality and consistency, innovation, sustainability, brand and impact, and value and integrity). Nothing about the cost of entry changes how carefully or how fairly an entry is scored.
What Winners Receive
Confirmed winners are recognised with a trophy, a certificate, an invitation to the annual black-tie gala in Dubai, and marketing rights to use the award title, logo and name across their own website, press materials and social channels — all included at no cost. Winning is the only thing that unlocks these benefits, and it is decided purely by the jury's scoring, never by anything paid for in advance.
Why Is Nomination Free?
Hospitality Awards exists to give every hospitality business and leader — a five-star resort and a twelve-room guesthouse alike — a genuine, merit-based shot at independent recognition. Charging an entry fee would inevitably exclude smaller, independent and emerging operators who often have the strongest guest-experience stories to tell but the tightest marketing budgets. Removing cost as a barrier means the only thing that determines who wins is the quality of the nomination itself.
Hidden Costs to Watch For Elsewhere
Within Hospitality Awards, there are no hidden costs at any stage — no mandatory "media package" upsells, no shipping surprises, and no annual "listing maintenance" charges. That said, it's worth knowing what to watch for when evaluating other recognition programmes across the wider market: entry fees disguised as "processing," physical trophy costs not disclosed until after a result is announced, and recurring renewal fees required just to keep a past win listed. None of these apply here.
How a Free Award Differs From a Public-Vote Poll
"Free" can mean very different things depending on the programme. Some free-to-enter recognition schemes are actually open public-vote polls, decided by whoever can rally the most clicks rather than genuine merit — these carry little credibility with guests, investors or industry peers because there's no independent evaluation behind the result. Hospitality Awards is free and merit-judged: entry costs nothing, but the outcome is decided entirely by an independent jury against published criteria, never by a popularity contest.
How to Nominate
- Choose your programme on Our Awards.
- Review categories on our Award Categories page.
- Complete the official Award Nomination form — free of charge.
Nominate today to put your organisation or yourself forward for consideration, at no cost.