Categories

Experiences are incredibly important to create engagement and a strong bond between visitors and destinations or businesses. This Award is for the experience that can demonstrate how it caters on all aspects that make up an experience from initial planning to purchase.

Design is problem-solving and effective communication. The best overall design Award will go to the campaign or project that demonstrates how their content meets both, whilst meeting the needs of their target audience, as well as the businesses priorities.

The pandemic highlighted vulnerabilities in business processes driving many to create solutions. In this category, we're looking for businesses that can showcase how their initiatives, whether a result of the pandemic or not, stand out in the wider market and create a positive ripple effect within the industry.

Technology is driving global solutions. For this Award, we're looking for initiatives that stand out for their use of digital technologies and are both accessible and impactful in the solution they offer. These initiatives may use technology to present an initiative such as AR/VR or use it to power them behind the scenes such as AI.

Visitors today are more than ever captured by purpose. This purpose is made up of the values and people behind an organisation. This category recognises initiatives that highlight the purpose behind a business or an organisation in a unique and impactful way. It's important that their impact goes beyond the surface to show how purpose is a part of the organisation's DNA.

As we rebuild tourism, the Industry Leadership Award recognises those who have commanded a strong sense of purpose and direction in helping drive forward progress from recovery to purpose and vision.

With the needs of industry shaped by the constant shift in the evolution of technology and trends in the consumer landscape, this Award recognises initiatives which have proven to be impactful and fundamental in helping the industry to evolve, strengthen its competitive set and become ever more relevant in changing times.

Amongst many other factors driving competitiveness, digitalisation sits at the core of everything. This Award recognises initiatives which stand out for their approach to supporting industry to embrace digitalisation and increase their overall competitiveness by integrating digital and technology deeper into the tourism value chain.

It's no secret that we are huge fans of co-design. The best co-design initiative recognises the best use of collaborative approaches, whether that's incorporating co-design into the strategy process or applying design thinking principles to a new strategy or digital solution.

Providing industry with the knowledge, insight and guidance needed to become stronger, more competitive and more relevant in today's visitor economy has always been at the heart of the work of DMOs. This Award recognises those resource hubs which stand out for their excellence - whether as a data platform, a knowledge hub or an altogether new or original approach to delivering knowledge and resources to support industry growth.

The best overall sustainability initiative stands out for its uniqueness and originality. It may be the pathway towards driving change in the industry, but it may also stand-out for highlighting and tackling specific problems. This Award recognises above all else the overall quality and effectiveness of execution alongside the impact and relevance to the issue at hand.

Recognising the role leadership plays in bringing about change, the Sustainable Leadership Award is open to organisations and individuals, recognising that leadership can come from anywhere.

One of the key pillars of sustainability is community and the social element related to tourism. The Best Community-Driven Initiative recognises those strategies, activities and actions which have focused on the involvement of communities in shaping a more inclusive and accessible approach to tourism in the future.

Businesses have an important role to play in driving change in our industry. If products and offers are defined by purpose and positive impact, together we can bring about a more sustainable industry. The Best Sustainable Business Initiative recognises originality, innovation and purpose coming together in a realignment of business competitiveness.

Tourism is widely acknowledged as having a significant environmental footprint, but can this be addressed through more sustainable business practices, consumer choice designed to mitigate impact or sustainable initiatives designed to reduce or even reverse negative environmental impact? This Award recognises the best initiative which doesn't only reduce environmental impact, but helps the environment and biodiversity to thrive once more thanks to tourism.

Social media is an integral part of digital communication. It can be used to promote services, products and values that people can rally behind and support. This Award recognises projects or campaigns that have used social media to meet their aims with an authentic voice. Entries will need to show active engagement and creativity when it comes to approaching social and building their brand persona.

With such an overload amount of available content on-demand, storytelling is a crucial way to ensure engagement. This may be presented in multiple formats, such as on the web, podcasts, videos or articles. This Award will go to the storytelling initiative that, aside from having an incredible tourism-related story, uses innovative formats to get their voice across and engage audiences.

The Award for this category will go to the organisation or business that has produced the most outstanding digital (online) campaign. This must show strategic thinking behind it, clear engagement with key target audiences and demonstrate a truly unique and impactful approach to creating brand engagement online.

Today more than ever, we're talking about experiences because, without them, we risk being forgotten or pushed aside. Digital experiences, more particularly, have grown significantly over the past year as a result of lockdowns and we've witnessed real innovation by tourism businesses and organisations to continue to provide the same type of experience travellers would have had access to when visiting. With that in mind, this Award will go to the most coherent and cohesive digital experience that can demonstrate strategic thinking, high engagement and a positive social impact.

For this Award, we're looking for organisations or businesses that have used a horizon technology in a unique way to solve a problem or create a compelling experience. This might point to an example of how new technologies or innovative thinking is helping you to solve challenges, prototype new ideas or engage with communities in a uniquely relevant way.