The real value of awards
As Hollywood sprinkles some much-needed razzle-dazzle over the last few weeks of winter, with Oscar shortlist announcements, the Golden Globe Awards and the Grammy Awards, we take a look at awards for the attractions industry and find out what a nomination can mean for your VA.
You don’t need to be an Oscar winner to know that winning an award is a huge boost to your attraction. Of course it helps improve visitor confidence, raises publicity and opens up opportunities to host more influencer and journalist visits. Outside of a pandemic, a win means there’s a good chance you’ll see visitor numbers grow, too.
But the less obvious benefits to getting involved with awards programmes can be even more valuable for your attraction – whether you win or not.
We talked to two award-winning attractions to find out how the process of applying for awards can be even more important than all the publicity that goes hand-in-hand with winning a shiny plaque at a celebrity-fronted awards ceremony (although that’s nice too!).
Old Royal Naval College (ORNC) in Greenwich beat stiff competition to win Gold in the Large Visitor Attraction of the Year category at VisitEngland’s Awards for Excellence 2020, while Stoke-on-Trent’s Gladstone Pottery Museum walked away with Gold in the Small Visitor Attraction of the Year category.
1. Just entering an award can boost staff morale
Regardless of whether your attraction wins, the simple act of entering a team for an award shows your support for the work that’s done internally, says Sasha Greig, Head of Visitor Experience, Retail and Marketing at ORNC. “If I enter a team into an award they know that, even if they don't win, we feel that what they're doing is worth recognising. That's a valuable thing.”
2. The application process helps with strategic planning and project reviews
Part of Nerys William’s role as Audience Development Manager at Gladstone Pottery Museum is to write the attraction’s award applications. She says the process is valuable as “a self-audit tool”, regardless of the outcome.
“We're a small team so we're always really busy and tend to end up firefighting and planning for the next thing. [Applying for an award] is a reason to sit down – this would seem like a luxury normally – and take the time to assess our performance over the last year.”
3. Applying for an award can help refine your attraction’s brand
Award application processes vary but some require a considerable amount of thought about how you convey your attraction. For Sasha, “having to write a statement of what we've done and why we think it's worthy of recognition actually helps us to consolidate our own story…to think about how we talk about ourselves and the work that we do.”
This doesn’t have to be as much work as it sounds. Sasha points out that they sometimes use similar pieces for press releases and internal communications, so the reworking and deepening of one type of content into another can be a process that serves to refine and strengthen. “It’s a beneficial thing to go through, even if we don't win them all,” she says.
4. Awards ceremonies are opportunities to connect with local and regional tourism teams
Awards ceremonies showcase a region’s top tourism businesses. They’re well worth attending for the chance to connect with regional tourist boards and local businesses (as well as for the free champagne), even if you don’t walk away with an award.
“It’s also about getting a good grounding in your local tourism offer, and that collective sense of pride,” says Nerys. “You meet other leading tourism people in your area and it can open opportunities to work together.”
You’ll learn about tourism businesses you didn’t know were operating and there could be opportunities to develop working relationships around ticket swaps, bundles or mutual promotion on social media. It could be as simple as making sure front-of-house staff are aware of other great tourism products in the area – after all, visitors are always asking for recommendations for other places to see nearby.
5. The process of applying helps you think outside the box
The range of awards out there, and the inspections processes that go hand-in-hand with some of them, can encourage you to tackle some aspects of your attraction that you might otherwise put off, such as sustainability and accessibility.
“I wouldn't say we'd ever do anything just with the hope that it would look good on the award application, but the fact that we do apply perhaps make us think more widely about the subject,” says Nerys.
Sasha agrees that applying for awards can help you be more proactive. “The accreditations and the inspections are really there to challenge you to think differently about how you could make improvements.”
It’s the taking part that matters
It’s clear that the real value of awards doesn’t lie in walking away with the top prize. There’s real value in the whole process, from applying and attending the ceremony to the longer-term relationships you can develop through the awards network.
What are you waiting for? Start entering your attraction for awards now! There are plenty to choose from. You can apply to your local tourism awards or look around for other awards, such as family-friendly schemes, local radio awards and retail awards. It pays to think laterally – in partnership with their architects, ORNC’s Painted Hall has won several RIBA awards, while Gladstone Pottery has won at the Staffordshire Chambers Business Awards and the West Midlands Volunteer Awards.
