The organisers of Burnham-On-Sea’s food festivals have this week been celebrating wins at the Bristol, Bath and Somerset Tourism Awards.
Nearly 300 guests from the best tourism businesses across the Bristol, Bath and Somerset attended a black tie dinner and awards ceremony at the Apex Hotel in Bath on Thursday night (November 15th).
Laura Rawlings from BBC Radio Bristol hosted the evening alongside Phil de Glanville, former Bath Rugby player, with sponsors presenting 86 hand crafted awards made by Shakespeare Glass.
Somerset-based organiser, Nell Barrington, said: “The numbers of entries this year has increased by nearly a third so the competition was really tough and it was great to see so many turn out in force to celebrate their achievements. My congratulations goes out to them all.”
Burnham-On-Sea eat:Festivals won Gold in the Responsible, Ethical and Sustainable Tourism Award with their citation reading “Immensely impressive – striving to only have positive impacts.”
The team also picked up Gold for the second year running in the Tourism event/Festival of the Year category. The citation described the event as “a fantastic buzzy atmosphere, fun and engaging for all.”
Organisers Bev and Sarah Milner Simonds were visibly shocked and emotional when presenter Laura Rawlings announced that they were to be crowned Winners of Winners.
“There are no fixed criteria for selecting the Winner of Winners. It can go to a business who has won many other awards, to someone who has won in their category by a huge margin, or maybe to someone who acts as a ‘role model’ to others in the way they deliver excellence.”
“This year’s Winner of Winners is all of these, impressing the judges not just by the excellence of what they deliver to visitors, but by the passion and enthusiasm they show in working with partner businesses and suppliers in encouraging them also to deliver excellence in an era in which being responsible, ethical and sustainable is ever more important. For their ground breaking delivery and work with partners this year’s Winner of Winners is eat:Festivals.”
Sarah said: “We haven’t come down yet. We were not expecting to achieve Gold this year. We made big changes with our sustainability in 2018 and we were hoping, that by entering, to get some good feedback on where we can improve. To win twice and then to realise that we had been selected as Winners of Winners is so shocking. Thank you to all those who make the festivals possible; our sponsors, backers, crew, producers, partners and the thousands who visit.”
