It seems that most of the judges who voted on which businesses would win a Tourism Whitsundays - WMD Award this year never actually familiarized or used the product or service of any of the applicants.
I have been advised that most of the judges for this years Whitsundays Tourism Awards decided who the winners would be from the applicants submissions only. They were 'locked up' in a windowless room for two days; fed "bad pizza"; and were asked to judge the winners from all the applications from the submissions alone.
To make matters worse, the submissions were files on a computer; each one 30 pages long and not printed out, so the judges could not go 'back and forth' comparing each applicant for each award.
The most extraordinary accusation is that none of these judges actually 'road tested' any of the Tourism Whitsundays Awards applicants' products or services. They were not given famils and were asked to judge the winners from just the information on a computer screen, which was written by the applicants.
How a Judge can pick the best Tours, Sailboat company, Restaurant, or Accommodation operator without even setting foot on their boat, restaurant, or hotel has got me and many others questioning the process of these tourism awards.
The Judges also had to pay to attend the actual Tourism Awards Ceremony on Hamilton Island. Apparently the night was not as successful as it is being made out to be - for some reason there was a huge shortage of chairs and a lot of people went home very hungry.
Related Stories:
Who is really the best at SocialMedia in the Whitsundays?
Lack of entries leaves 8 Tourism Whitsundays Awards uncollected
