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MidCoast Council’s destination brand Barrington Coast is a finalist in two categories of the New South Wales Tourism Awards for 2022.

The NSW Tourism Awards celebrate business excellence, innovation and exceptional customer service.

MidCoast Council entered these awards for the first time in 2021 with impressive results, winning gold in the category “Local Government Award for Tourism” and silver in the category “Tourism Marketing and Campaigns”.

“I’m thrilled to see us named as a finalist for the second year running in these same two categories,” MidCoast Council’s Mayor Claire Pontin said.

The two award entries focused on the robust research and data-driven strategies undertaken by MidCoast Council for destination management, tourism branding, campaign strategy, media choice, creative design, and tracking user behaviour.

“The feedback from judges about our entries last year was invaluable for fine tuning our 2022 submissions, as they wanted to hear our story told in an engaging way.

“Our first full year of destination marketing activity provided some breathtaking results, with our campaign industry partners reporting revenue increases of up to 81% year on year.

“Since our 2021 wins, we’ve continued to enjoy exceptionally strong brand awareness and visitor sentiment results across both our destination marketing and visitor experience channels, which has resulted in us being NSW Tourism Award finalists again this year and Barrington Coast a finalist in the prestigious Mumbrella Travel Marketing awards in the breakout destination of the year category,” the Mayor said.

The “Tourism Marketing and Campaigns” category recognises creativity and innovation in the promotion of tourism products, services and destinations.

Barrington Coast’s inaugural destination marketing campaign “Whatever It Takes” launched in 2021 and continued through the Covid19 lockdown period, concluding May 2022.

The “Local Government Award for Tourism” category recognises excellence in tourism planning, marketing, provision of quality visitor experiences and sustainability.

Destination Barrington Coast is joined by two local tourism businesses as finalists in the 2022 awards: Sea Horse Diamond Beach is a finalist in two categories: “Self-contained Accommodation” plus “Excellence in Accessible Accommodation”; and Bent On Food Wingham in “Excellence in Food Tourism”.

Both of these successful businesses are already multi award winners in NSW Tourism Awards plus other national awards including Australian Small Business Awards and Australian Regional Business Awards.

NSW Tourism Awards winners are announced 17 November in Sydney. Relevant category winners will go on to represent NSW at the Australian Tourism Awards later this year in Sydney.

The Barrington Coast destination marketing campaign is also a finalist in the Mumbrella Travel Marketing Awards 2022, one of Australia’s most prestigious tourism awards.

These awards celebrate marketing achievements in the travel and tourism industry and the Barrington Coast Campaign is a finalist in the category “Breakthrough Destination of the Year”.

The marketing project “Blaze your own trail” was submitted by the lead agencies Fred & Co Digital with Destination Marketing Store and Leonards Advertising.

Other finalists in this category are Tourism Fiji, Tourism Noosa, Visit Victoria and Gourmet Coast Trail. Mumbrella Travel Award winners are announced 27 October in Sydney.