The Northern Ireland Tourist Board (NITB) is the strategic leader for tourism and champions the development and promotion of the Northern Ireland tourism experience. It identifies where the best prospects exist to deliver world class excellence and develops programmes to assist the tourism industry to reach its potential. NITB's aim is to ensure Northern Ireland features on everyone’s destination wish list.

In organising these awards, NITB seeks to:

• Reward excellence in Northern Ireland’s tourism and hospitality industry;
• Promote Northern Ireland as a successful destination by helping businesses to be the best;
• Encourage shared best business practice to help businesses innovate, compete be creative and reinforce the Northern Ireland brand;
• Recognise those who demonstrate implementation of the Northern Ireland tourism brand values. For more information on these visit www.nitb.com/visitorinspired
• Encourage Northern Ireland's tourism and hospitality industry to get involved in ni2012, our time, our place www.nitb.com/ni2012

Now, more than ever, is the time to make sure your business gets the profile it deserves. The Northern Ireland Tourism Awards are the premier industry accolades and winning one makes a clear statement to both competitors and customers about the success of your business.

Winning an award is an independent and prestigious endorsement of your organisation and the quality of your products and services. Just entering the awards helps you strive for excellence and allows you to benchmark yourself and be counted amongst the top performers. There will be a winner in each category as well as highly commended and commended finalists.

So there’s plenty of opportunity to make an impact. Entering NITA gives your organisation the opportunity to review your business performance and identify your core strengths. Winning or being commended gives you opportunities for publicity, positive business profiling and heightened credibility within your industry and, crucially, with customers.

Entering NITA will give you other benefits too, especially feedback and the opportunity to meet like-minded and successful people at Northern Ireland Tourist Board events.

Being commended, highly commended or winning an award outright is:

• An excellent sales and marketing tool for your organisation;
• An independent and prestigious endorsement of the quality of your organisation;
• Excellent for staff and management morale and pride in the organisation;
• An opportunity to boost sales, by boosting your profile;
• A way to open doors to new suppliers, customers, investors and partners - it tells them your company has credibility and should be taken seriously.

Just taking part in NITA will give you the opportunity to:

• Benchmark yourself against your peers;
• Review your business strategy and focus;
• Engage key staff within your organisation;
• Attend the prestigious Northern Ireland Tourism Awards gala evening (and reward key staff);
• Attend an NITB Unique Tourism Insights event free of charge as part of the 2012-2013 Industry Development Next Level Programme;
• Get feedback to help your business.

We’ve made the entry process as simple as possible, there is NO entry fee and the benefits of entering far exceed the effort involved.
Even when the event is over, the benefits to your organisation continue. For example, NITB will also:

• Issue information about all of the finalists to local media together with photographs taken at the gala ceremony;
• Feature finalists in a special publication issued by NITB and distributed at the awards gala event;
• Present a certificate to highly commended and commended entrants to display within their premises. The awards logo will also be made available for category winners for use in publicity materials for a period of 12 months following the awards ceremony;
• Capture your success in an online video record of the night that will be on the internet for at least 9 months.

The award categories are designed to be wide ranging and to reflect developments and trends within the tourism and hospitality industry.

A detailed description of each award category and an overview of the type of information the judges will be looking for is on a separate page which can be viewed by clicking here or using the link above at the right side of this page.

From there you can download the entry form for each category you want to enter. The forms are all Word documents. Simply answer the questions (taking care to make sure you meet the criteria for the award category) and email the form back to us before noon
on 20 February 2012.

We've tried to keep the entry process as simple as possible and you are asked to observe the following:

• You may enter more than one category;
• But you can only enter each category once;
• Each entry must be on the appropriate entry form;
• Entries should be word processed and must address the criteria given for each category;
• All entries must relate to activities undertaken between 1 March 2011 and 20 February 2012
• All Accommodation entrants must be certified with NITB for a minimum of 1 year, prior to the closing date for entries;
• Responses should not exceed 500 words per question. Boxes on the entry forms can be expanded as required, to fit 500 words;
• Following preliminary judging a shortlist of entrants will be selected for final judging;
• If deemed appropriate anonymous visiting may take place before final judging;
• The decision of the judging panel will be final and correspondence cannot be entered into;

NOTE: Supporting materials such as visuals, press clippings, marketing materials, photographs etc should NOT be included as part of any submission. Only the entry form can be assessed. If forwarded, additional items and information will not be assessed as part of the judging process and we regret such items cannot be returned.

If you are having any problems either downloading information or sending your submissions, just contact the administrators using office@nitourismawards.org we’ll be glad to help you or answer questions.

Each award category has its own team of dedicated specialist judges. We have a rigorous three stage judging process:

• A technical evaluation carried out by a technical panel made up of tourism professionals with wide ranging experience
• An independent panel of industry experts who select winners, highly commended and commended entries from the short listed entrants;
• A mystery shopping exercise (where appropriate) to validate the winners, highly commended and commended entrants.

Every submission is evaluated by the judges, who work to a strict scoring system. They look at the evidence provided on the entry form, the business results and the impact on the business or organisation. Scoring is consistent across the categories, even allowing for variations in information requested to reflect each category. Certain evidence requirements such as research, delivery, impact and evaluation are consistent across the categories.

The way the entry is presented does not feature in the scoring system, although the more concise and relevant the information you provide, the easier and clearer it is for the judges to score.

The scoring won’t be prejudiced by your location, the size of your business, nor the size or budget for any activity you are providing evidence of – it’s the rationale and the results that are important. We also want the Awards to reflect the make-up of the industry - from micro and small businesses to larger NI operators.

The Northern Ireland Tourism Awards, in association with Diageo Northern Ireland, will be presented at a black-tie gala event to be held at the Grand Opera House, Belfast, on Monday 21 May 2012.

The night is one of the most exciting in the tourism and hospitality calendar. There's always a great atmosphere and excitement as the award winners are announced. To relieve the tension there will be first class entertainment throughout the night and afterwards there'll be an opportunity to enjoy some great food while networking, entertaining staff and customers, meeting old friends and even making some new ones as well!

The gala event always sells out quickly and many organisations that attend every year book their places as soon as tickets go on sale. The gala evening offers exceptional value and we've held the ticket prices at the same level as last year. The ticket price includes:

• pre-dinner drinks reception;
• awards presentation ceremony;
• entertainment;
• post event supper featuring the very best of Northern Ireland's local produce;
• wines served with supper.

Tickets are now on sale. Please click on the buttons below to book places using your credit card via our secure server or you can download the booking form in PDF format. This can be completed and returned with a cheque. Places are limited and will be allocated on a first come first served basis. Early booking is strongly recommended.

Right click this button and select "save target as" to download a copy of the booking form in PDF format	Click here to go directly to the secure online booking page and pay by credit card.

Find out more about the evening by clicking here