This year’s Greater Manchester Tourism awards, hosted by Marketing Manchester, took place last night
with representatives from across Greater Manchester’s tourism industry gathering to recognise excellence in their field.
The Whitworth took home the coveted ‘Large Visitor Attraction of the Year’ award, at the glittering awards ceremony held at Hotel Football. The judges commended the gallery for affirming Manchester’s status as a cultural destination. The Fusilier Museum in Bury was meanwhile confirmed as winner of the ‘Small Visitor Attraction of the Year’.
Great John Street Hotel was named ‘Hotel of the Year’ owing to its warm welcome, high levels of customer care and unique personal touches. The Place Aparthotel picked up the ‘Serviced Apartments of the Year’ award for the second year running.
The award for ‘Business Tourism’ went to IWM North with judges praising its unique and exceptional space and its cohesive business plan linking in to the local community. The Museum of Science and Industry was highly commended in the same category.
IWM North was also triumphant in the ‘Large Tourism Event of the Year’ category for its WWI centenary exhibition, From Street to Trench: A World War That Shaped A Region. The Fusilier Museum also won its second award of the night, ‘Small Tourism Event of the Year’, for its Gallipoli 100 exhibition.
The ‘Sustainable Tourism’ award went to MMU Conference and Events which was noted for all round sustainability being embedded in to their practices. Manchester United Museum and Stadium Tour received a highly commended nod.
‘Restaurant of the Year’ went to Fazenda and ‘Best Entertainment Venue of the Year’ to The Lowry.
The award for ‘Tourism Experience of the Year’ went to the Wandering Duck Canal Boat Experience for the second year running, noted for their excellent attitude to accessibility and for realising what a wonderful, untapped asset the UK’s waterways are. Craig Gill from Manchester Music Tours was also highly commended in this category for taking visitors to parts of the region where tourists rarely set foot.
Adam Woof of The University of Manchester Hospitality and Events was presented with the ‘Tourism Star of the Year’ with one judge commenting that “every tourism and hospitality business needs an Adam!”
In addition, two special awards were also given out on the night. The first went to Coronation Street the Tour for ‘Exceptional Contribution to Tourism’ in light of the significant, short term impact the attraction had on tourism and visitation to Greater Manchester from April 2014 to December 2015 when it will close.
The final award of the night was the ‘Honorary Award for Services to Tourism’, presented to outgoing Marketing Manchester chief executive, Andrew Stokes. Andrew will leave the organisation this week after 17 years in which he oversaw huge changes in the region’s tourism offering.
Nick Brooks-Sykes, director of tourism at Marketing Manchester part of the Manchester Growth Company, said: “Greater Manchester’s tourism industry is on a fantastic trajectory at the moment and, in fact, new data released this week indicates that tourism now generates £7.5 billion to the economy of Greater Manchester, an increase of 64% since 2005, and a rise of over 7% on 2013.
“Of course, recent accolades such as Lonely Planet including Manchester in its list of top cities to visit in 2016 will undoubtedly have a further positive impact; however, day-to-day it is the people within our industry who make Greater Manchester such a fantastic place to visit and these awards are our way of recognising the movers and shakers who set the high standard that others should aspire to follow.
“Whilst the awards are always a terrific occasion, they have been somewhat bittersweet this year as we also mark the departure of Marketing Manchester’s outgoing chief executive, Andrew Stokes. Andrew does, however, leave Greater Manchester’s tourism industry in great shape and with a strong plan for his successor to take forward over the coming years.”
