Celebrating Victoria's Top Tourism Towns
Top Tourism Town Awards recognise and celebrate towns that offer amazing visitor experiences.
This year is the first time Victoria has participated in the Top Tourism Towns Awards, and we are thrilled that 22 towns across Victoria chose to enter.
These awards are an opportunity to showcase the value of tourism to towns and communities across Australia and celebrate the diversity and outstanding regional destinations Australia has to offer.
For the first time the Top Tourism Town Awards will also be included in the Australian Tourism Awards. So not only will towns be competing at a state level, the Gold winner in each state will judged at a national level and recognised as the Top Tourism Town in Australia.
The Top Tourism Town Awards recognise and reward towns that:
- Demonstrate a strong commitment and encourage tourism and increased visitation to their destination
- Offer an excellent visitor experience, and
- Exhibit collaboration between tourism operators, local businesses and the community as they work together to make their town the best destination it can be
Submissions from entrants have been through a judging process, and are now open to public voting. The judges score and the consumer vote will then be combined to determine the winners.
Public voting is an ENORMOUS opportunity for entrants to encourage their community, their visitors and their followers to VOTE for them.
Towns who actively promote voting are not only increasing their chances of winning the award, they promoting and reminding their locals, their visitors and potential visitors what a great place their town is to visit – and that can only be good for their visitor economy.
Congratulations to the following towns who are finalist in the Victorian Top Tourism Town Awards (VOTE NOW):
- Aireys Inlet
- Apollo Bay
- Avoca
- Ballarat
- Beaufort
- Bendigo
- Dromana
- Dunkeld
- Fingal
- Frankston
- Great Western
- Halls Gap
- Heathcote
- Jamieson
- Lakes Entrance
- Mallacoota
- Nagambie
- Paynesville
- Port Fairy
- San Remo
- Swan Hill
- Timboon
All the very best to all entrants in the 2021 Top Tourism Town Awards.
Our founder, Alison McDowell has been a judge for the Victorian Tourism Awards since 2015, and a judge for the Victorian Top Tourism Town Awards since 2021.
Choice Hotels are listening to their customers
With a pent up desire to travel, Melburnians are ready to explore regional Victoria.
They want a break away and they want it to be easy. Easy to book, easy to enjoy and easy to support local. However, with hospitality businesses remaining at reduced capacity there is a real risk that visitors may not be able to access local restaurants.
We explored this issue with Choice Hotels and as a result the group has developed a suite of Victorian Great Escape Packages.
The packages are available at selected Choice properties across Victoria and include; 2 nights accommodation, breakfast, and dinner on the first night. This provides certainty of a restaurant reservation upon arrival, while giving the guest the opportunity to explore and make their own arrangements at local restaurants on following nights.
We applaud Kari Hunter, General Manager Marketing and the team at Choice Hotels Asia Pacific for considering their guests needs beyond a room for the night, and product bundling to deliver increased return and yield to their franchisees.
Find your Choice Hotel Great Victorian Escape Package