Crystal Creek Meadows in Kangaroo Valley, Australia, managed by one of our MSc students, has just won the QANTAS Award of excellence in Sustainable Tourism at the national awards held on Friday 26th February 2010 in Hobart.
Last year’s winners were SkyRail, a large attraction in Queensland. This year the entries included the Hilton in Adelaide (a good example of EMS in an old hotel), the Crown Plaza in Alice Springs (good example of million dollar investment into solar power), sustainable actions by two activities providers (in Tasmania and Western Australia) and Alto Hotel in Melbourne (offering free parking for guests using electric or hybrid cars). The judges this year found the decision difficult and could not agree on a single winner as the marks were identical for one very large and one small family business. So for the first time in the history of the awards in any category they declared Crystal Creek Meadows and SkyRail joint winners.
QANTAS uses the awards to make a contribution to tourism by; running a sustainability seminar in each state, offering $2,000 prize to the state winners and then writing them up for their in flight magazine (February edition) and generously giving $25,000 to the national winner, who then appear on the in flight video on all flights. The in flight magazine devotes editorial to the subject of sustainability. The awards are determined on the basis of a 30 page submission and a site visit.
View Crystal Creek Meadows here:
http://www.tourismalliance.org/tourismalliance/TourismFinalists09.html
