In a former life, I worked for Watneys. The brewers. A cindarella job. “We want you to help look after about 100 tenanted public houses. We wll give you a car and we want you to go round and make sure the beer is up to par” Needless to say, after a year or so, several near misses and a broken marriage, with a lot of help from AA (not the airline) I gave up alcohol. Today, just for today, I am sober.
One of the annual Watney rituals revolved around the (then) Evening Standard “Pub of The Year” award, which accolade, Watneys were keen to have. In order to achieve this accolade, some oik was sent out out, armed with about £10,000 (which was a lot of money in the mid ’80’s) to buy every Evening Standard available so that the voting coupons could be filled in. One year, I remember, the oik duly came back with lorry loads of the paper, only to find that the voting coupon was not in that particular day’s issue!
(Correct) Paper in hand, the office staff were all given instructions which pub to vote for and then all sat down to do their bit.
Ever since that time, I have this rather jaundiced view of award ceremonies. They are all fixed. Indeed (and in all fairness) it would be difficult to police the voting, but fixed they are. Lately, I was looking at the “World Travel Awards” (mainly because someone sent me a “vote for us” email) and was a little surprised to see who won last year. Some of the awards, you think “fair enough” but others?
“Leading City Break Destination” – Lisbon. LISBON?? Think Brussels without the excitement. No mention of Rome, Paris (the most romantic city on earth), Florence, Venice, Prague… “Business Hotel” – Movenpick Istanbul (really!). Now, the Turks have worked hard, because they feature widely – “couples” and “design” resort, “conference” resort and Hey! Even their Tourist Board gets a look in – I wonder how they managed that?
Forte Village Resort won Europe’s Leading Resort – (a “fair enough” – if you can afford it). But “Leading Luxury Hotel” – the “Grand Hotel Europe” in St. Petesburg?? The list goes on (and on, and on…) For any award to be worth something, the award has to be credible. An Olympic Gold Medal (or any Olympic medal) is credible – you have seen it for yourself, it is irrefutable. The George Medal, the Congressional Medal of Honour, the Croix De Guerre… and on a (much lesser) level, the rosette my youngest daughter won at the Gymkhana… they are all credible, they are all honoured and respected – you cannot get one by getting the staff to fill in forms, YOU have to do YOUR bit. On the other side, you can see that travel awards, from various sources and for the reasons mentioned above, are not credible and because they are not credible, they are….. worthless.
Travel award ceremonies are all well and good. They are a useful opportunity to scrub up, for ladies to dust off their posh frocks, to relax and enjoy some good like-minded company, to chew the cud – a drink and a chat, though, that is all they are good for.
Just note this: Please, please, don’t expect me to believe in them…..
