Turtle Bay Resort, on the North Shore of O'ahu, made it into Travel + Leisure magazine's "Top 25 Hotels in Hawaii" for 2008 for the first time, hotel officials said.

And getting ranked on the list is a big thing for the resort, said Bob Boyle, Benchmark Hospitality's vice president and general manager at Turtle Bay Resort, because the most luxurious resorts in the state usually dominate the rankings.

For the past 13 years, Travel + Leisure magazine has presented the "World's Best Awards," asking about a million subscribers to select their favorite hotels, spas, airlines, cruise lines, outfitters, cities and islands around the globe.

The top five award winners are the more familiar names in these resort polls — the high-end properties, mostly on the Neighbor Islands: Four Seasons Resort Lana'i, The Lodge at Koele; Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea; Four Seasons Resort Hualalai, Ka'upulehu, Kona, Hawai'i; Halekulani, Honolulu; and Hotel Hana-Maui & Honua Spa, Hana.

Boyle said the award helps recognize management company Benchmark's $60 million renovation of the resort.

"It's really the staff being recognized,"Boyle said. He said it is especially meaningful because the poll was from a reader's view with an attempt to get one vote per subscriber and eliminate people who work at the properties.

And he said the selection means more than an editors poll in which a magazine's managers might pick properties based on the amount of advertising purchased.

Last year was good for business, Boyle said, with occupancy averaging around 80 percent and expected to dip to about 77 percent this year in response to fewer air seats, higher fares and skyrocketing fuel prices.

Benchmark Hospitality, which operates 30 hotels, resorts and personal luxury properties throughout the U.S. and in Japan and Panama, has managed Turtle Bay Resort since 2001 for resort owner Kuilima Resort Co., a subsidiary of Oaktree Capital.