NATION JOURNALIST Gercine Carter is the first recipient of the Heritage Award presented in the inaugural Barbados Tourism Media Awards.
Carter, whose career in journalism spans close to 50 years, received the award for “exceptional national coverage by a local journalist”, from Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism and International Transport, Senator Irene Sandiford-Garner, on Thursday night at the Fairmont Royal Pavilion Hotel.
It was the premier award presented on a night when international journalists vied for Barbados Tourism Media Awards inaugurated by the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc.
Eighteen finalists were selected from among 53 entries submitted by the foreign media.
The best nine emerged winners when the results were announced at the awards dinner attended by several visiting journalists here to cover the 20th Caribbean Tourism Organisation State of the Industry Conference.
It was a winning night for Canadian journalists, among them Britney Hope whose entry won the Best Feature Article in a Trade Publication.
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Canadian journalist Cara McLeay receiving her Barbados Media Award from Secretary-General of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation, Hugh Riley.
In the category Is That an Accent, editor and freelance journalist with Elle Quebec, Violene Charest-Sigoiun, won for The Best Feature by a Foreign Journalist in Foreign Media, while Canadian blogger Cara McLeay’s Barbados Diary was a winner in the category Best Story by a Blogger.
UK editor John Hawkins won for his entry Rum’s The Word, in the category Spoken Like a True Bajan.
The winning entries covered diverse areas of Barbados’ tourism offerings, and one after the other, the recipients spoke favourably about their experiences writing about the island.
Doug Wallace, Canadian editor of the publication Le Carte, won for his entry Eat Your Way around Barbados one Food Stand at a Time. In a videotaped acceptance speech, Wallace thanked Barbados for the award, saying: “I had an amazing Barbados experience and I cannot wait to eat my way around that island again.”
Canadian writer Violene Charest-Siguoin (left) accepting her Barbados Media Award from Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism Donna Cadogan.
Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy said it was a night when Barbados chose to acknowledge the contribution of “those who have been telling the story of Barbados.”
He said that in the 50 years Barbados had been in tourism, it had done “quite well”, with visitor arrivals this year projected at a record 600 000.
He said this could not be achieved through word of mouth alone. He, therefore lauded the contribution of the media, remarking that while the concept of media had changed, the “concept of wanderlust and wanting to tell a good story” had not.
