More than 300 representatives of the travel industry’s best and brightest packed the ballroom at the Jumeirah Essex House on a cold January day to attend a reception in their honor. Well-known personality Ivana Trump was on hand to congratulate winners and garner support for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Trump, an LLS spokesperson, encouraged the gathering of industry elite to donate to this year’s Global Traveler auction (see page 36) to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Since it was founded in 1949, the society has raised and invested more than $550.8 million for research to find treatments, and ultimately a cure, for blood cancer.

Global Traveler Publisher and CEO Francis X. Gallagher congratulated this year’s GT Tested award winners, as well as the recipients of GT’s annual Wines on the Wing survey of the best wines served by airlines around the world. Wines for the luncheon were provided by Wines on the Wing award-winners EVA Air, which took the overall award in 2007, and American Airlines, which came in first in white wines and second in red wines during an extensive wine-tasting event directed by Global Traveler wine columnist, and foremost wine authority, Eunice Fried.

Gallagher reminded celebrating award winners that the honors bestowed upon them are the result of an open-ended survey of Global Traveler’s well-traveled readership.

“Our readers are an elite group of global travelers,” Gallagher said. “They have experienced the best airlines, hotels and travel services the world has to offer. To be acknowledged as ‘the best’ by this esteemed community is an honor of the highest order.”