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0:00
Hello.
I'm here to talk about the
importance of tourism awards,
why enter them, and how to win.
My name is Robin Barker
and I am Director
of Services for Tourism, who run
a number of tourism award schemes
within the UK.
0:17
What I'm going to do is
firstly just talk about awards
and why they are
run, then run through
why it is worth
entering them, process
and how it all works, and
importantly, how to win,
ending by just sharing some
of the top tips and mistakes
that others make to
help you avoid them.
0:43
So kicking off, why do
people run award schemes?
For a variety of reasons.
Firstly, from our
perspective of a destination,
it raises the quality of the tourism
experience that's available there,
and it does that by having a process
that involves having entry forms,
selection of the better
entrants, and giving
feedback to those entrants.
Also running workshops that might
help to enhance some of the aspects
of those businesses and
help them get better still,
and by having industry judges
who themselves learn and gain
from the whole experience of
looking at who are the best
and working out how
they can get better.
They're also good for a
destination because hopefully you
can end up with lots of winners
in your award that go on
and win nationally.
And if you can claim that you've
got more winners in your patch
than anyone else, then that
is a real success story.
The awards are also great in what
is a huge and fragmented industry
with lots of small
tourism businesses
that often don't talk to each other,
and joining up that tourism industry
and providing an
opportunity for businesses
to engage and talk with
each other and share ideas.
And finally and not least
importantly, they're
an opportunity for celebration.
And most of us are working
flat out dawn till dusk,
and particularly when we're
running a very small business,
there often isn't the chance to
let your hair down and celebrate,
and awards provide that
fantastic opportunity,
and it genuinely is
a great opportunity.
