The objective of the North West Provincial Tourism Awards is to recognise the role played by industry in tourism development and promotion within the North West Province. This includes service excellence, tourism promotion, social responsibility programmes as well as tourism development initiatives.
NW is synonymous with tourism icons namely Sun-City, Madikwe Game Reserve, Haartebeespoort Dam- which recently launched the popular Cableaway, and Cradle of Humakind amongst others, yet the province still lacks behind with tourists visit.
Monde Kakula, Brand Manager of the North West Parks and Tourism Board and project co-ordinator of the awards, says they’ve raised the bar from last year’s awards.
“Having learnt from last year’s preparations, this time around we’ve made sure all entrants were submitted on time, proper management system were on place and nominees were properly placed according to their submissions,” says the excited Kakula.
Says Kakula, the awards also seeks to create awareness about the tourism industry in the province; foster working relations between public and private sector within the industry; extend the wealth of authentically diverse North West tourism experiences; stimulate growth of tourism businesses in the province and encourage service excellence in the tourism industry.
The North West Tourism awards categories are as follows:
Accommodation (Guest Houses/B&Bs, hotels, lodges etc), Emerging Tour Operators, Restaurants (not attached to hotels), Conference Centres (not attached to accommodation), Tourists Attractions (excluding community projects), Tourist Guides, Media (tourism programmes/personality/coverage/presenter), Tourism Ambassadors and Schools.
Entries opened in July, 2012 and were submitted through local media or hand delivered at NWT offices.
NW MEC for Department of Economic Development Conservation and Tourism, Motlalepula Rosho and NWP&T headhoncho Allan Losaba, will present the awards.
Commented Kakula:” We’re striving to show to the people of NW, what tourism can do in an attempt to uplift their lives and also improve our profile internationally.
Since its launch last year, we’ve had a good turn out in terms of entrants which augurs well for tourism development in our province,” she pointed out.
Hopefully, the awards would conscientious the people of the province to visit more often and international visitors would take note of such icons the province pride itself with.
