All the winners of the BGTW Members' Excellence Awards have been announced at ‘BGTW’s Really Big Reveal’, a 40-minute online broadcast on Sunday 18 April. The broadcast also saw the announcement of the winners of all 13 BGTW Members’ Excellence Awards (MEA), the four BGTW International Tourism Awards (ITA), and the Charleston Writers’ Awards. 

The broadcast was made possible thanks to support from Tenerife Tourism, with additional sponsorship for the MEA from Explore Charleston, and for the ITA from Travel Connection Group. It was recorded at The Savoy hotel in central London. Also appearing were Franck Arnold, the managing director of The Savoy, David Perez, CEO of Tenerife Tourism, and Doug Warner, director of media relations at Explore Charleston.

Commenting on the broadcast, Stuart Render, BGTW’s awards director, says: “In any normal year we would have announced our award-winners at our Annual Gala Awards Dinner. With the 2020 event postponed to 31 October we didn’t want to wait. But we also wanted to produce something a little different, and to break away from the traditional Zoom-style of awards presentation.

“Thanks to some magnificent creative input from Guild member Jon Holmes, the camera and editing prowess of Michelle Tofi, presenting gigs by Guild members, and the involvement of The Savoy and Explore Charleston, we were able to deliver an entertaining and light-hearted broadcast that followed on from our ‘Big Reveal’ broadcast last November.

“I’d like to give my heartfelt thanks to everyone involved in bringing this project to fruition, as well as offering my congratulations to all our winners. We now look forward to all getting together at The Savoy on Sunday 31 October for ‘BGTW’s Annual Gala Awards Dinner – A Celebration of Travel.’ The event, empowered by Tenerife Tourism, will be an opportunity to network, reward and reconnect, something I feel we’re all really looking forward to. You’ll be hearing more about all of that in the months ahead.”

And the winners are...

BGTW Members’ Excellence Awards (as judged by 30 international judges):

• Travel Feature of the Year – UK: Nigel Tisdall  
• Travel Feature of the Year – non UK: Adrian Phillips
• Travel Feature of the Year – Regional and Specialist Media: Meera Dattani
• Specialist Travel Feature of the Year – the Bryn Frank Award: Sue Watt / Ellie Cobb Highly Commended
• Transport Feature of the Year – The Kenneth Westcott-Jones Award: James Stewart
• Travel Book of the Year - The Adele Evans Award: Emma John
• Travel Photo Feature of the Year: Simon Urwin
• Travel Blog Post of the Year: Bella Falk
• Travel Broadcast of the Year: Cassam Looch

• BGTW Travel Blogger of the Year: Richard Collett
• BGTW Travel Broadcaster of the Year: Aaron Millar 
• BGTW Photographer of the Year: James Rushforth
• BGTW Travel Writer of the Year: James Stewart

BGTW International Tourism Awards (as voted for by BGTW members):

• Best UK and Ireland Tourism Project: Mayflower 400: Legend and Legacy, The Box, Plymouth, Devon
  • Nominated by Alex Green and Lynn Houghton

• Best Europe Tourism Project: Juliana Hiking Trail, Slovenia
  • Nominated by Rudolf Abraham

• Best Wider World Tourism Project: Partition Museum, Amritsar, Punjab, India
  • Nominated by Meera Dattani

• The Armchair Award: Visit Faroe Islands: Realtime Tour, Live Guide
  • Nominated by Roger Bray

Charleston Writers’ Awards

Joint first place to Juliet Rix and Jonathan Thompson

Second place to Kathryn Tomasetti

For full details of all the award-winners, go to bgtw.org