AFTER six months of judging and 125 business visits, the winners of this year’s Cornwall Tourism Awards have been announced, with Bude Tourist Information Centre winning gold.

Now in their 15th year, the awards saw an increase to 195 entries entering 25 different categories, with a new one this year being ‘Glamping’.

The awards’ celebration was enhanced by an entertaining presentation from lyricist and cricket enthusiast, Sir Tim Rice, who shared anecdotes from his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber and Elton John.

The 25 award categories covered everything from surf schools, cafes and hotels to cottages, spas and holiday parks.

One gold winner included Bude Tourist Information Centre, for Tourist Information Service of the Year, of which is not the first of their successes in 2016.

Mark Hibbard of Bude Tourist Information Centre, said: “It’s brilliant. We’ve not entered these awards for the last couple of years, but we have won gold, silver and bronze at other times.

“The process involved many applications, where we had to prove our worth, so this involved our engagement with the community and engagement with people coming into the centre. Then there was mystery shopping, mystery emails, mystery phone calls, mystery online chats, which were all scored. Also, for the first time this year, they introduced scoring of our digital information, so they saw how well things worked on the website, as well as how the web worked on mobile and phone devices.”

Mark added: “Everyone here is absolutely elated. It shows all the hard work does pay off. We were open from 10am until 7pm this summer, as holiday makers don’t tend to just go home at 5pm, meaning we had to recruit more staff, so we’ve had to make a big financial investment.”

Charlotte Colwill, chairperson of Bude Area Tourist Board, said: “Bude is a thriving Cornish holiday resort. All of the local businesses work hard to ensure Bude stands out as the best in Cornwall, but this recognition at the Cornwall Tourism Awards is a fantastic achievement for the staff at the Tourist Information Centre.”

Successful businesses in the Cornwall awards will be fast tracked into matching categories in the South West Tourism Excellence Awards in February 2017, and will possibly be invited to represent Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly in the 2017 National VisitEngland Awards.

For a full list of winners, visit www.cornwalltourismawards.org.uk