British Travel Awards Safari Winners: Every Year's Medallists for Safari Holidays and What the Vote Measures

Expert Africa and Newmarket Holidays won Gold for Best Travel Company for Safari Holidays at the 2025 British Travel Awards, in the small-company and medium-company tiers; across the eight rounds the organisers publish in full, 2015 to 2023, Titan Travel has the most medals in the category with eight, and Mahlatini Luxury Travel leads the small-company tier with six. The British Travel Awards are decided by consumer votes, companies pay to appear on the ballot, and each category is split into three size tiers, so one year can produce three Golds. This page lists every medal in the archive, the 2024 and 2025 results that could be confirmed, the Africa categories, and what the vote does and does not measure. The 2026 results are due on 7 December 2026.

Verified 23 September 2026 · britishtravelawardsnews.com results archive · britishtravelawards.com results, entry and key dates pages · 2024 and 2025 results checked against the winners' own award pages

Who has won Best Travel Company for Safari Holidays at the British Travel Awards, year by year?

Gold for Best Travel Company for Safari Holidays has gone to Saga, Hayes & Jarvis, Kuoni, Virgin Holidays, Newmarket Holidays and Trailfinders among large companies; Titan Travel, Kuoni, Exodus Travels and Newmarket Holidays among medium-sized ones; and Imagine Africa, Mahlatini Luxury Travel, Naturetrek, Africa Sky, Hayes & Jarvis and Expert Africa among small ones. The British Travel Awards (BTA) results archive covers 2015 to 2023, with 2021 and 2022 combined into one round, and uses today's category name for every year; some earlier rounds ran under a broader title, Best Travel Company for Safari, Wildlife and Nature Holidays. “Below threshold” means too few votes were cast in that tier for a medal to be given.

2024 and 2025: what could be confirmed

BTA's archive has not yet added 2024 or 2025. The results below are the ones a company reports on its own awards page, and for 2025 the two Golds also appear on BTA's live results page. BTA's live page gave inconsistent readings for the other 2025 medals in repeated checks, so they are not listed.

Which companies have won the most British Travel Awards for safari holidays?

Titan Travel has won the most medals for Best Travel Company for Safari Holidays, eight between 2015 and 2023, five of them Gold; Hayes & Jarvis and Mahlatini Luxury Travel have six each, and Imagine Africa, Saga and Virgin Holidays five each. The counts cover BTA's archive, 68 medals in eight rounds; results confirmed since 2024 are shown in their own column.

The size tiers explain the spread. BTA grades holiday categories by passengers carried, so large general holiday companies such as Saga, Kuoni, Virgin Holidays and Trailfinders compete among themselves for large-tier medals, while specialists such as Mahlatini Luxury Travel, Imagine Africa, Africa Sky and Expert Africa win in the small tier. A small-tier Gold is a full Gold, but it was not won against Saga or Trailfinders. The results also show turnover among specialists: Imagine Africa's web address now leads to Scott Dunn, and Expert Africa, with no medal in this category in the 2015 to 2023 archive, took Silver in 2024 and Gold in 2025.

How are the British Travel Awards decided?

British Travel Awards results are “determined solely by the number of verified votes cast” by the public, and each holiday category is graded into small, medium and large companies by passengers carried, with up to nine medals per category when enough votes are cast. There is no judging panel. The awards were co-founded in 2001, became fully consumer-voted in 2008 and were sold in January 2020 to Esmond Wilson and partners, according to TravelMole. For 2024, TravelMole reported 1,207,712 votes from more than 400,000 consumers. The 2025 winners were announced at Grosvenor House on Park Lane, London, on 8 December 2025 (TUI Group). Voting for 2026 closed on 11 September 2026 and the results are due on 7 December 2026 (BTA key dates).

Do companies pay to enter the British Travel Awards?

Yes: a standard entry costs £500 plus VAT, and BTA's own description of the awards refers to “nomination fees from companies wishing to be listed on the BTA voting form”, which include a licence to use its voting app and “other approved lobbying assets”. Voting is free for the public, and BTA runs a prize draw for voters. The practical point for travellers is that a company which does not enter is not on the ballot, so its absence from the results says nothing about its quality, and a medal rewards a company that entered and then persuaded its own customers to vote. BTA describes itself as “an independent organisation” with “no stakeholder ties to any travel or travel publishing companies”. Sources: Enter the awards, About the awards.

Which smaller UK companies have won British Travel Awards for safari holidays?

In the small-company tier of Best Travel Company for Safari Holidays, Mahlatini Luxury Travel won six medals between 2015 and 2020, Imagine Africa five between 2015 and 2019, Africa Sky two plus a 2018 Bronze under the name Africaskysafari.com, Naturetrek two Golds in 2019 and 2020, Hayes & Jarvis a Gold in 2023 and Expert Africa a Silver in 2024 and a Gold in 2025. Natural World Safaris, Wildlife Trails, The Earth Trip, Wayfairer Travel, Travel Butlers and The Bucket List Company each won one small-tier medal. These are the results to read if you want a UK-based specialist rather than a large holiday company.

Two well-known UK safari names do not appear in these results. Yellow Zebra Safaris, winner of the World Travel Awards' Europe's Leading Safari Tour Operator every year from 2015 to 2025, has no medal in this BTA category in the archive, and neither has Scott Dunn under its own name. Companies must pay to enter, so an absence can simply mean a company did not enter this category; the results alone cannot show which. The US versus UK safari operators comparison and the Expert Africa review cover the UK specialists in more depth.

Best Travel Company to Sub-Saharan Africa and to East Africa

BTA's broader Africa category, Best Travel Company to Sub-Saharan Africa, has been won most often by Newmarket Holidays and Titan Travel, five Golds each between 2015 and 2023, followed by Hayes & Jarvis with three; a separate Best Travel Company to East Africa category was added for 2025. The Golds by tier are below, from BTA's Africa results archive. For 2025, Distant Journeys (its awards page) and Newmarket Holidays report Golds that also appear on BTA's live results page; for 2024, Hayes & Jarvis reports a Gold and Distant Journeys a Silver without naming the tier, so 2024 is not in the table.

East Africa had no category of its own in the 2024 nominations. In the category's first year, 2025, Expert Africa reports a Silver. BTA's live results page gave inconsistent readings for the rest of the category in repeated checks, so no other 2025 East Africa medal is listed here.

What readers get wrong about the British Travel Awards

Three Golds in one category is normal, a Gold is a count of customer votes rather than a judged verdict, and a company missing from the results may simply not have entered. Each medal belongs to a size tier: Expert Africa's 2025 Gold and Newmarket Holidays' 2025 Gold were won in different tiers, not against each other. The category name has also changed over time, and BTA's archive shows today's name for every year, so a company's own page may quote an older title for the same medal.

Three planning rules for UK travellers booking a safari

1 · Check the medal on BTA's own records. The archive on britishtravelawardsnews.com lists every result from 2015 to 2023 by year, tier and colour. For 2024 and 2025, ask the company which tier its medal was in.

2 · Confirm financial protection before paying. A holiday package that includes flights, sold by a UK company, should carry ATOL protection; the Civil Aviation Authority explains what that covers and how to check a company's ATOL number. The guide to safari deposits and payment terms covers what to ask before the first payment.

3 · Compare a UK company's quote with an Africa-based one. The same camps can be priced differently, in a different currency and on different deposit terms, by a UK company and by an operator based in Africa. The safari operator price comparison shows published prices side by side.

What changed in 2026

The 2025 ceremony added a category and a new Gold winner, and the 2026 round has closed its vote.

8 December 2025. Expert Africa won Gold for Best Travel Company for Safari Holidays in the small tier, a year after its 2024 Silver (Expert Africa).

8 December 2025. Best Travel Company to East Africa was awarded for the first time, alongside the existing Sub-Saharan Africa category.

11 September 2026. Public voting for the 2026 British Travel Awards closed (BTA key dates).

7 December 2026. The 2026 winners are due to be announced. This page will be updated with the safari and Africa results.

How to price a British Travel Awards winner

Ask the medal-winning company for its own quote, then price the same camps through an Africa-based specialist and a comparison platform. The Go2Africa, Safari.com and BookAllSafaris links below are affiliate links; none of the three appears in the British Travel Awards results on this page.