Albany Advertiser
Tuesday 14/11/2006 Page: 3
ALBANY has scooped the competition to win the GWN Top Tourism Town award. With less than two points separating the final five towns, Albany inched over the line to win the accolade on Friday night. "We're ecstatic," City of Albany Tourism Development officer Krysta Guille said.
Judge Gabrielle Ausden said the Albany Visitor Centre did a fantastic job of showing the judges the best Albany had to offer.
"They used every minute to show us an amazing experience: the locally made coffee, a bit of a wonky scooter ride, the wind farm, a whale watching boat tour and also the chance to meet some of the local producers from the markets and Mt Romance," she said.
"We were even greeted by someone dressed up in an old solider's uniform to talk about Albany's heritage." The award is particularly exciting for the City of Albany, which took over the running of the visitor centre 18 months ago.
The launch of the Amazing Albany brand earlier this year and the refurbishment of the centre, completed five months ago, has formed the cornerstone of the new approach toward tourism. "The operators in town really got on board when we launched the brand," Ms Guille said.
"When we hold functions there's such a good turn out. Everyone has really come together for tourism in Albany." The award brings promotional benefits. "We're going to use it as a marketing tactic - we are WA's top tourism town," the City's Economic Development manager Jon Berry said.
"We'll get some TV ads because GWN is one of the major sponsors. "People in the caravans and motor homes, they might be coming here from up north and hopefully this will encourage them to stay a little longer. "People still don't realise how much there is to do down here." Chair of the awards judging panel, Ray Bird, said the standard of entrants was extremely high.
Albany also won the heritage award in the special category section.
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