VisitEngland Awards for Excellence: frequently asked questions
Applying
The local awards are open to tourism businesses that are located in the catchment area of the relevant destination. In order for your winning entry to be forwarded to the national awards, the local competition must be officially linked to and recognised by the VisitEngland Awards for Excellence.
To enter the local awards, businesses must be directly involved in tourism. That is, they must contribute to the visitor economy with a significant proportion of business generated by people visiting from outside the local area.
In order to enter the national VisitEngland Awards for Excellence, you must have won a category in your local awards. Winners of local awards will automatically be entered into the national VisitEngland Awards for Excellence.
Category-specific eligibility requirements can be found on the Awards categories page.
The majority of local awards competitions are free, though a few may decide to charge an entry fee to non-members. It is free to be put forward to the national VisitEngland Awards for Excellence.
Your route to the national tourism awards is via your local awards competition. Winners at local level will automatically be put forward to national judging. Find your local competition.
To ensure a level playing field, all applicants must succeed in their local competition in order to progress to the national awards. We are liaising with destinations that do not currently offer local awards, to offer support in setting up a competition.
If there is currently no local competition in your area, you may wish to contact your accredited Local Visitor Economy Partnership or LEP Growth Hub to notify them of your interest in a local contest aligned with the VisitEngland Awards for Excellence.
You can apply to one or more local awards if you are eligible, as all associated core awards feed into the national VisitEngland Awards for Excellence. It is possible that some local awards may have certain terms and conditions that prevent you from applying if you’ve already applied to another awards programme in your area.
Please contact your local tourism award organisers in the first instance.
Apply now
Your journey to the VisitEngland Awards for Excellence starts by entering your local competition. Simply complete one application for your regional awards. If you win, your entry will automatically be submitted to the national awards. Entry dates vary, so sign up to your local awards communication channels to stay updated.
Find your local tourism awards
Judging
We judge all entries – regardless of which local competition you’re applying for – using the same guidelines. Feedback is given to every entrant on how their application could be improved. Once all entries have been scored, we create a shortlist to help determine the overall local winner.
Some competitions may carry out judging visits to all applicants, while others may choose to visit a selection. Local winners are automatically put forward to the national VisitEngland Awards for Excellence.
More information on the national judging process can be found on the Judging page.
We judge every applicant within the size and context of their business, and ultimately against customer expectations. In the past we’ve had a fish and chip shop successfully compete at national level against a luxury hotel restaurant in the Taste of England Award category.
At the very least, all entrants receive feedback on how to improve their application. Local awards competitions may provide further feedback – please contact your awards organiser for details.
In some local competitions a selection of businesses may receive visits. However, receiving a visit does not necessarily mean that you’ll be shortlisted.
No. Local winners of core categories will automatically be entered into the national awards.
There are nearly 20 local awards competitions that feed into the national judging, and they take place at different times of the year. Allowing local winners whose competition happens earlier in the awards cycle to amend their original application may create an unfair advantage over those whose win is announced just before national judging.
National shortlisted winners are usually announced in April.
Meet the judges
VisitEngland appoints industry experts across several judging panels to determine the Gold, Silver and Bronze national winners for each category.
National Awards Ceremony
The 2024 VisitEngland Awards for Excellence event will be taking place at Rum Warehouse at The Titanic Hotel Liverpool on 5 June.
National Awards Framework
No. We work in collaboration with local awards competitions to set the core categories, eligibility criteria and application forms to create a consistent awards programme. The administration of the local awards competitions, including local judging and award ceremonies, is carried out by the local competition organisers.
Any local awards competition wishing to feed their winners into the national VisitEngland Awards for Excellence must follow set rules regarding core categories, eligibility criteria, application forms and the judging process. If for any reason a local awards competition is unable to fulfil these requirements, regrettably they are unable to submit their winners to the national awards. We are happy to work with local award organisers to help them meet the minimum requirements.
The VisitEngland Awards for Excellence sets core categories for every awards cycle, in collaboration with the Tourism Awards Steering Group. Local award organisers may choose to add as many additional categories at local level as they wish, specific to their destination’s tourism offering.
If you have further questions about the VisitEngland Awards for Excellence, please contact us at [email protected]
