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| F&B Magazine What a great industry! The winners of the recent Hospitality Association Awards for Excellence personify just how great the hospitality industry is in New Zealand. This year’s finalists, and more particularly the winners, represent the real diversity within the industry from country hotels through to five star accommodation; from provincial restaurants to cutting edge metropolitan bars. New Zealanders and indeed our international visitors are blessed with a huge range of choice of where to stay, where to eat and where to be entertained. The choice continues to expand. In the year 2000 there were 15,993 hospitality businesses; by 2006 this had grown to more than 20,000. Those that are doing well are exemplified by this year’s winners in the 16 Hospitality Association of New Zealand’s Awards for Excellence categories. The challenge for the sector is to lift the standard across the board with every hospitality business striving to achieve excellence. What has made these businesses successful is not only that the owners and operators and staff have a passion for the hospitality industry, they also have a passion for excellence. When the passion for the industry can be matched with that hunger to be the best then truly great operations emerge which are successful for the customers and so are also successful for the operator. None of this year’s winners have had it easy, their winning did not happen by accident. Their winning happened through hard work, a passion for the industry and a commitment to get it right for their customers. The Hospitality Association’s Awards for Excellence programme has now been in place for 10 years and in each year the standard has continued to rise and while that makes a challenge for the judges even more difficult, they are raising the bar for all hospitality operators and the real beneficiaries are of course our customers. The passion, commitment and hard work of this year’s winners is something all of us should strive to replicate. Bruce H Robertson 28 September 2007 |
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