Last month we officially closed the Awards entry portal for the FIRST EVER International Travel & Tourism Awards. After a steady flow of entries from national, regional and city tourist boards as well as large and small private sector companies from around the world, the final week to enter (much to our delight) saw the entries flood in.
We were overwhelmed with the response to these inaugural awards, not only was the interest so high, the quality from what we could see was of a very high standard too. It was obvious to see, people had taken so much time and effort to complete their entries.
This meant there was just one-step left until the Awards night itself – the judging day.
Last week, on Thursday 5 July, this year’s expert judging panel for the International Travel & Tourism Awards met to discuss the array of entries. The judges had a very long task ahead of them so they, along with the International Travel & Tourism Awards team met at Reed Exhibitions head office in Richmond, London for an extremely busy day of judging each category.
Due to the nature of these awards, the judging panel was made-up of experts from around the globe so not all judges were able to attend in person. Instead, all categories had a dedicated conference call taking place at the same time so judges could participate in the conversations wherever they were located in the world. After all, these awards are truly International.
It wasn’t long before the judging was in full flow, many of the judges were already prepared with their preferences in each category after going through the supporting documents and reviewing the entries online the week before the judging day itself.
No stone was left unturned during the judging day, with the judges spending a considerable amount of time firstly rattling the long lists down to a top-quality shortlist, and then deciding on who the deserving 13 gold and silver winners of each category should be, as well as highlighting any highly commended candidates along the way. This was by no means an easy task.
After much debate and consideration, the shortlist and winners were in and now the excitement builds to revealing the shortlist (due to be announced at the end of July) and the Awards evening itself which is taking place at Tobacco Dock, London on Tuesday 6 November from 18.30. See here for more information about the exciting and entertaining awards ceremony.
See the full list of the judges involved and read our previous blog about how we selected them by visiting the awards website.