Cream of the crop Tourism Businesses crowned at The Beautiful South Awards

Brighton’s iconic Grand Hotel provided the setting for this year’s Beautiful South Awards sponsored by Shepherd Neame. 

The presentation and dinner welcomed over 275 industry professionals from the elite visitor experiences across the South and South East of England and recognised their contribution to the tourism industry.   Established over 20 years ago, The Beautiful South Awards help drive ambition and raise standards throughout the region rewarding excellence, quality, innovation and customer service.   

It was a particularly good evening for The New Forest’s Montagu Arms who were the only business to scoop a double gold for Small Hotel of the Year and Flavour of the South East. 

Also celebrating their victory at the awards dinner was the Port Lympne Reserve, Kent whose Livingstone Lodge Overnight Safari beat off tough competition to win Tourism Experience of the year.  Other winners included The Mary Rose Museum, Portsmouth who took gold in the Large Visitor Attraction category; The Isle of Wight’s Owl & Monkey Haven for the Small Visitor Attraction Category; Swan House, Hastings was chosen as the Best B&B provider of the year and The Pointer Country Pub, Buckinghamshire walked away with Gold for Tourism Pub of the year plus Silver for Flavour of the South East.  The winners are now invited to champion the South East at VisitEngland’s Tourism Excellence Awards in 2015.

In addition Lord Lee of Trafford was presented with the Outstanding Contribution to Tourism Award.

Commenting on the awards, Peter Colling, Managing Director of Tourism South East, said, “Every year the Beautiful South Awards are a reminder of the amazing wealth of fantastic tourism businesses and experiences South East of England has to offer. And this year the overall standard of entries was higher than ever making it extremely tough for the judges. The winners truly are the best of the best and a match for any in the country. We are now looking forward to our winners taking the spoils at Visit England’s National Tourism Excellence Awards.”

For more information about the awards and awards night please contact awards@beautifulsouthawards.co.uk

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