[caption id="attachment_33177" align="aligncenter" width="607" caption="Well Hello, NewNowNext Destination 2011 "][/caption]

The results for the first annual NewNowNext Travel Awards are in and we have some winners to share with you -- and one of them (hint: pictured above) is a bit of a shocker.

First a recap of how this all went down. To start with, we polled a group of professional travel writers -- our NewNowNext Travel Awards Academy -- and got them to give us their nominations in our 10 categories. From their expert input, we came up with nominees in all 10 categories and then opened it to voting by the readers or tripouttravel.com and newnownext.com.

Thousands of you voted and some interesting places took the top position -- most notable is probably Columbus as the NewNowNext destination. I'm guessing the folks in St. Petersburg (Russia) and Baku may not have heard about their nomination...

In any case we're thrilled that Columbus took that award and happy for all the other winners as well.

Here's the full list of the 2011 NewNowNext Travel Award winners:

Best US Destination: New York City

Best Global Destination: Montreal

Best Luxury Hotel: Peninsula Chicago

Best Resort: Encore Las Vegas

Best Hotel Chain: W Hotels & Resorts

Best Airline: Jet Blue

Best Annual Event: Mardi Gras, Sydney

Favorite Travel Show: The Amazing Race

Sexiest Spot: Rio de Janiero

NewNowNext Destination 2011: Columbus, Ohio

Thanks again to the Academy members for participating and to all readers who voted for your favorites. And as for us...I guess it's about time we get cracking on those 'What's Doing in Columbus' pieces.

Check out more travel hot spots RIGHT HERE!