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Night of Stars rewards tourism’s best

Local tourism operators and promoters celebrated the region’s success on Tuesday evening, with a ‘Night of Stars’.

By Latrobe City - 21st May 2003 - Back to News

Local tourism operators and promoters celebrated the region’s success on Tuesday evening, with a ‘Night of Stars’, when the Phillip Island and Gippsland Discovery Tourism Awards, were presented at the Premier Function Centre in Traralgon.

The awards provided recognition to tourism businesses from all over the Gippsland and Phillip Island region, and an opportunity to promote their work and the innovation in the tourism industry.

The awards saw five Latrobe Valley operators recognised for their achievements. Murphy’s Motor Inn was a finalist for the ‘Budget Accommodation’ award; Mountain Top Experience was winner of the ‘Tour and Transport Operators’ award; Brigadoon B&B received a Certificate of Merit in the ‘Boutique, Hosted and Unique Accommodation’ category; Latrobe City’s ‘Events Latrobe’ won the ‘Festivals and Special Events’ award for the Latrobe Spring racing Carnival – The Power of Racing; and PowerWorks took out the ‘Significant Regional Attraction’ award.

The Phillip Island and Gippsland Discovery Tourism Awards winners were keen to emphasise how much the awards meant, not just to promote the quality of their business, but also to the region itself.

Latrobe City’s ‘Events Latrobe’ manager, Janiene Ayre, discussed the success of the Spring Racing Carnival – The Power of Racing, explaining that where a major event can tap into a whole range of other events in the community, then not only does it become a success in its own right, but all the related events benefit as well. "It’s very much about the community benefiting as a whole," Ms Ayre said.

Latrobe City’s Chief Executive Officer, Richard Hancock, also announced at the awards that a grant of $77,000 had been approved from the Commonwealth Government’s Regional Assistance Program to establish an integrated program of tourism packaging in Latrobe City and the surrounding localities. Latrobe City will also commit to substantial in-kind support to the project.

"The project will support targeted marketing of the region’s tourism assets to a range of audiences within Gippsland, Victoria, Canberra, Sydney and Tasmania. It will also assist local business to collectively package their services and foster a tourism-friendly awareness campaign," Mr Hancock said.

Ron Camier, from Mountain Top Experience in Morwell, stated that the awards themselves helped promote Mountain Top’s type of business to the community "We’re a relatively new and very different type of company, and the recognition from both the Tourism industry and the general public generated through these awards, mean a lot to us," Mr Camier said.

Chairman of Phillip Island and Gippsland Discovery Tourism Inc., Ken Hore, stressed the importance of partnerships and togetherness, particularly between the Regional Tourism industry and the State Tourism industry.

"With this month’s State budget announcing a $40.5 million dollar boost for tourism in Victoria, and with $10 million of that earmarked for regional marketing, the proposals are indeed very motivating for the Gippsland region’s tourism industry," Mr Hore said.

Marlene Bartistta, from AusIndustry in Traralgon, which sponsored the ‘Significant Regional Attraction’ and ‘Superior Accommodation’ awards, said she was "delighted to help to promote local business as well as demonstrate support for the importance of tourism to the commercial sustainability of regional Victoria."

"AusIndustry is aware that many tourism attractions and services are helping to create links with other regional industries such as farming, boating, aquaculture, environmental resources, food and wine. We hope to reach new, as well as current customers, to promote business assistance products," Ms Bartistta said.

Michelle Toppin, Tourism Development officer for Latrobe City Council and event manager for the awards, commented that the main message of the evening was creating a target for all tourism business to strive for. "These awards give other local tourism businesses something to aspire to," Ms Toppin said.

"All entrants had to go through an extensive screening process before becoming finalists. With judges from many different departments within the tourism industry, some from State and some from regions, all finalists had to be of an exceptional standard.

"The majority of the finalist and winners are also looking forward to the challenge of the Victorian Awards, so Gippsland’s tourism seems headed for even more recognition," Ms Toppin added.

Source: www.gippsland.com

Published by: news@gippsland.com

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