When preparing your nomination for the Marketing Cheshire Tourism Awards, it is essential to thoroughly highlight the strengths and unique aspects of your business. Focus on demonstrating excellence in customer experience, innovative marketing strategies, and sustainability efforts. Showcase recent improvements and their positive impact, and detail your future plans for continued growth and innovation. By addressing these key points and providing specific examples, you will effectively convey why your business stands out and merits recognition.
This toolkit asks 4 key questions;
- Your top qualities
- Your recent improvements
- Your results
- Your future plans
Q1. Your top qualities
Allow your business to stand out in every aspect, focus on delivering unparalleled product quality and customer experience, detail added extras, team morale, supporting local suppliers, implementing innovative marketing strategies, and maintaining accessible facilities.
- The quality of your core product and customer experience
- Added extras that delight your customers
- How you care for your team
- Use and promotion of local suppliers
- Innovative marketing and PR
- Facilities and welcome for people with accessibility requirements
- Managing and improving environmental, social and economic impacts
- Innovative adaption, diversification and/ or resilience building
- What do you do to ensure every element of your business is excellent?
- What makes your business the best in your area, and potentially the best in England? (particularly relevant for Visit England linked awards)
- Why is your business is impressive compared to your competitors
- Do your customers say you are the best? What is the most frequent comment they make about you?
- Is the experience you offer memorable? If so, why?
Consider all areas of your business that you excel in such as services and facilities offered, care that you give to your staff and visitors, sustainability, accessibility; think about the ways that you are innovative in your field. Review the bullet points under each question when answering, they include lots of different areas you might want to consider, and those that judges will be keen to see as part of your nomination process.
Areas to consider for Question 1;
Caring for your customers
- Always going the extra mile
- Staff training and development
- Induction process for new staff
- Customer feedback initiatives/complaints process
- Attention to detail
- How do you delight every single customer that comes through your door?
- How do you make them feel special and provide them with amazing memories to take away?
- What added value do you offer your guests? This could be things like the warmth of welcome from you/your team, or the follow up you give
- How do you ensure that your staff are the best ambassadors for your business - is this through recruitment, induction, training, reward?
- Why will guests shout about you to all their friends?
- If there is a problem, is it dealt with swiftly and how is it acted on?
- Who is responsible for ensuring that every aspect of a visit is perfect?
Innovative marketing /promotion
- Do you have specific examples of marketing and promotion carried out?
- Have you tried something different or out of the ordinary?
- Reference social networking sites
- Joint marketing with other tourism businesses
- Engagement with Marketing Cheshire and Visit England or Visit Britain campaigns
Show the full ‘journey’ of the marketing activity -
- How did you identify the need/opportunity (customer feedback perhaps?)
- How did you use this to influence what you did?
- How did you monitor the effectiveness of the activity and amend as/if needed? (e.g. change in comments on customer review sites?)
- How did you ensure the activity was integrated across all platforms, including social media?
- How did you increase reach and impact by working with other businesses and local organisations (including your LVEP/DMO?)
- What was the impact of the activity on your business/bottom line (be as specific as possible)
Accessible and inclusive tourism
- Commitment to delivering excellence for guests with accessibility requirements
- Consider the needs of the widest range of people
- Information and promotion - Accessibility Guide, website
- Accessible facilities and services
- Employing disabled staff, staff disability and accessibility awareness
It is important to stress that this aspect is part of what judges are looking for in ALL categories, not just the Accessible & Inclusive Tourism Award. It also makes business sense, as nearly one in four people in the UK have an impairment, which may affect where they choose to stay or visit. Improving your accessibility benefits all customers and does not always require major or expensive changes – simply providing a free Accessibility Guide for your venue can help you be more inclusive for people with a wide range of visible and hidden impairments.
Tourism businesses with improved accessibility appeal to a wider range of customers. It’s not just disabled customers who benefit; it’s families, older people and practically all your customers in one way or another. People with health conditions and impairments tend to take longer holiday breaks than average and therefore tend to spend more money per trip. They also want more information in advance, which is why your accessibility information should be easy to find on your website.
As in other areas, the initiatives should be across the business and not in silo and your team need to be onboard and well informed - there is loads of free training and guidance available. VisitEngland has a dedicated section on its Business Advice Hub to help businesses be more accessible, including a comprehensive accessible and inclusive tourism toolkit for businesses.
For more examples of best practice, visit the Accessible and Inclusive Tourism Toolkit for Businesses, particularly the Top 20 Tips checklists. Answers to questions are encouraged to include details of: Facilities and welcome for people with a range of accessibility requirements. For example, this may include information provision, adapted customer experiences, accessible facilities for people with a range of impairments and staff disability awareness training. Some more detailed examples below:
- Information and interpretation available in alternative formats e.g. large print, audio, subtitles, BSL, sensory story, possibly Braille.
- Clear, easy to read and inclusive signage e.g. ‘accessible toilet’ rather than ‘disabled toilet’
- Printed information e.g. menus (including allergen labelling & dietary options), leaflets and maps follow clear print guidelines and include key accessibility information and/or signpost to where accessibility information can be found
- Accommodation: Information on the accessibility of places to eat and visit
- Facilities and Services; Are there specific facilities provided for customers with accessibility requirements e.g. designated parking spaces, sufficient seating (some with arms and backrest), accessible toilets, Changing Places facilities, permanent/portable ramps, lifts, hearing loops, sensory enhancements, quiet spaces, hand rails, equipment for loan etc.?
- Are accessible facilities, e.g. accessible bedrooms and toilets, of same quality as other facilities (or better)?
- Attractions: are there dedicated sessions to engage disabled groups such as touch tours for visually impaired, relaxed sessions for people with autism, dementia friendly sessions?
- Have the needs of the widest range of people been considered? E.g. families with young children, older people, people with temporary physical impairments (for example, those on crutches), people with specific dietary requirements?
- Is there good, even lighting and colour contrast on site e.g. wall and floor colours contrast well with one another
- Staff Disability and Accessibility Awareness; Are staff confident in serving customers with accessibility requirements
- Are staff aware of, and familiar with, accessible facilities, services and equipment available?
- Can all customers enjoy the same level of service and experiences?
- Inclusive recruitment and employment (where relevant)
- Is there an accessibility champion in the business?
- Does the business employ anyone with impairments or health conditions?
- General; Are disabled people and/ or accessibility professionals engaged, visiting the business and giving insight, feedback and recommendations?
Q2: Your Recent Improvements
Explain your reasons for making the improvements and indicate which parts of the business are impacted:
- Promotional initiatives
- Improving the skills of you and your team
- Expansion, upgrade of facilities, enhancements to your services
- Facilities and welcome for people with accessibility requirements
- Managing and improving environmental, social and economic impacts
- Innovative adaption, diversification and/ or resilience building
- Use of digital technologies
- Approximate date of improvement
The judges (certainly at a national level) will be looking for what's new, in the last two years, particularly if you have had success in the awards in the past. Judges will be looking for examples of improvements from across the business. This question is for you to detail up to five ways in which you have developed your business and/or improved the customer experience over the last two years. One or more of the following example areas may be relevant to address in your answer (it is not mandatory to cover every area):
(Only include examples of improvements undertaken in the last two years.)
- Promotional initiatives e.g. new website, social media comms
- Improving the skills of you and your team
- Expansion, upgrade of facilities, enhancements to your services
- Facilities and welcome for people with a range of accessibility requirements; For example, this may include information provision, adapted customer experiences, accessible facilities for people with a range of impairments, employing disabled staff and staff disability awareness training
- Managing and improving environmental, social and economic impacts; For example, this may include a carbon reduction plan, energy and waste monitoring, green transport, community initiatives and responsible purchasing
- Innovative adaption, diversification and/ or resilience building
- Reasons for making the improvements e.g. driven by customer feedback
- Approximate date of improvement
It is helpful to provide the reasons for making the improvements e.g. driven by customer feedback and the approximate date of improvement. Again, show the full journey of the initiative:
- Why did you decide to do it?
- How did you decide what to do?
- How did you embed sustainability into the plans?
- What targets did you set out to achieve?
- How have you monitored outcomes and outputs?
Q3: Your Results
Are you able to attribute three successes from the last year, directly to any of the improvements that you’ve detailed in Question 2?
Use figures and specific examples such as:
- Increase in occupancy levels/visitor numbers, sales, customer satisfaction and wastage reduction
- Increase in online bookings or repeat business
- Business generated from marketing activity
- Growth of social media following and engagement
How significant has the impact been on your business?
Q4: Your Future Plans
For this question, advise of three ways you will develop and promote your business over the next year and the reasons why. Judges will be looking for detailed examples of future plans from across the business, with a clear rationale. One or more of the following example areas may be relevant to address in your answer (it is not mandatory to cover every area):
- Demonstrate continued innovation, adaption, diversification and/ or resilience building
- This may include information provision, adapted customer experiences, accessible facilities for people with a range of impairments and staff disability awareness training
- Managing and improving environmental, social and economic impacts. For example, this may include a carbon reduction plan, energy and waste monitoring, green transport, community initiatives and responsible purchasing
- Expansion, upgrade of facilities, enhancements to your services
- Improving the skills of you and your team
- Marketing and PR, including partnerships with other businesses
- Operational efficiency
- Use of digital technologies, such as automated services, robotics and artificial intelligence (AI)
- It is helpful to provide evidence of how you have identified the need/opportunity and the impact you are looking for it to have.
Top Tips, Useful Links
- Start preparation early
- Highlight why you are different and what are your best qualities
- Don’t over complicate
- Reflect your passion and personality
- Fully answer question, use prompts to help
- Include initiatives from across the business
- Show how you act on feedback (and mistakes!)
- Don’t forget accessibility and sustainability
- Embrace review sites; they can be invaluable
- Read through the form twice – ask a colleague
- Review and submit on time
- Refer to the relevant criteria
- Make sure you answer the question
- Tailor your answer
- Use facts - do not make ambiguous or inaccurate claims
- Support answers with evidence
- Don’t assume the judges know your business!
- Use the word limit and give detailed answers
- Make every word count - don’t waste word count with duplication
- Ensure all aspects of your business are covered
What is the timeline for the Marketing Cheshire Tourism Awards process?
Monday 17 June 2024 - Awards open
Friday 30 August 2024 - Awards nominations deadline
October 2024 - Announcement of finalists
March 2025 - Awards ceremony
June 2025 - VisitEngland Awards for Excellence
Useful links and digital toolkits
Visit England - Benefits of entering
Visit England - Awards for Excellence
Visit England - Review core entry forms in advance of entering
Visit England - Free Business advice
Visit England Digital Toolkits - Award Winner’s PR Toolkit
Visit England Digital Toolkits - Digital Marketing Toolkit
Visit England Digital Toolkits - Accessible & Inclusive Tourism Toolkit
Visit England Webinars - Accessibility
Visit England Webinars - Sustainability
