Hints and Tips

Your business or visitor experience must be located in the relevant area of South West England.  There are separate awards for each of the following areas:

• Bath, Bristol and Somerset, incorporating Gloucestershire
• Dorset
• Devon
• Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly

Please make sure you enter the appropriate scheme.

• Start preparing your entry early and don’t leave things till the last minute, the deadline cannot be extended.
• Read the questions and the “checklist” points (after each question) before you start to consider what you are going to include.
• Why not share drafts with colleagues/customers to get more ideas?
• Use the word count for each question and provide a full answer, do not leave any blank or give one line answers as you will not be able to score points. Marks are awarded for each question and you want to score the maximum possible.
• Shout about why you are excellent and back it up with evidence. In your final online submission you will not be able to exceed the word limit.
• VisitEngland has a range of business advice should you need any assistance regarding sustainability or access.
• Tell the judges why you are different, unique and be passionate about your commitment to excellence.
• Provide evidence of success for each question including weblinks that relate to each answer.
• Answer factually and honestly. If you are mystery shopped, your claims will be checked.
• Feedback and quotes from visitors make strong evidence. Tourism is a people business and judges are looking for evidence that you have made a difference to someone’s visit.
• Presentation matters. Make it easy to read, use simple English and avoid jargon.
• Do a spell check and proof read – and if possible get someone else to read through your entry to check anything you may have missed.
• Make your entry stand out by focusing on what is unusual or innovative, don’t be modest, this is your chance to shine.
• Check every page and link to your website(s) and social media – judges will be looking here too.

In all entries it is possible to include links to websites illustrating your responses or to cloud files containing relevant evidence.  You will not be penalised if you have not included supplementary evidence. Any written answers that are included within the supplementary evidence attempting to circumvent the question word counts will be disregarded.