The Cathay Pacific Travel Media Awards deadline is just next week, Friday 3 February. There are terrific prizes for travel writers and travel photographers.
We’re very keen to encourage entries for our newest award categories – the NZ Maori Tourism Award for the Best Travel Story about a Maori Tourism Experience and the NZ Maori Tourism Award for the Best Travel Image that captures the essence of Maori. As this is the first year we have run these two Maori cultural awards the Travcom committee have decided to open these categories to stories and images published within the last three years, i.e. from 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2011.
All other awards entries must be published within the 2011 year (1 January 2011 to 31 December 2011). It might be helpful to have some more guidelines on the NZ Maori Tourism writing awards:
MAORI TOURISM STORY GUIDELINES
· The story should describe a Maori experience in which the tourist is able to participate, rather than just being an observer (such as a watching a concert). This can include discussion with Maori about the meaning and history of what they are seeing/doing (e.g. being shown around a marae, looking at carvings) as well as taking part in an activity.
· The experience should impart to the tourist an understanding of Maori culture: present-day and/or historical (so simply paddling a waka along a river, with no explanation of tradition, history, meaning, wouldn’t count).
· The Maori element may be just one component of a larger tourism experience, as long as it is authentic, meaningful and genuinely part of the experience, rather than just an add-on.
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ONLINE ENTRIES NEED PRE-APPROVAL
As this is the first time we’re opening up the awards to online content the Travcom awards sub-committee are pre-approving all entries from online sources. If you have a story or image that you would like to enter that was published on a third-party travel editorial website please send me the URL. I will send it onto the committee for their O.K.
Please be aware that all other competition conditions remain the same; i.e. the entrant must have been paid for their work, it must have been published within the 2011 year (1/1/2011 to 31/12/2011), and the entrant must be based in New Zealand. I will still require 1 x entry form and 2 x hard copies of each story. As many websites seem to print out in 8 point I encourage entrants to enlarge the type size so that it’s easier for our writing judges to read.
If you would like entry forms please let me know as I can email or post some to you.
It’s worth checking out the Tips on Entering on the Travcom website or if you have any queries please let me know and I’ll be happy to help.
Best wishes
Helen Davies
Travcom Administrator
Ph: (09) 6245707
Mob: 021 1781 384