CIMTIG awards are important for everyone

A big CONGRATULATIONS to Virgin Atlantic for winning Travel Brand of the Decade... and to all the other winners this evening...including Flagship Consulting (photo).

For travel consumers and travel journalists/bloggers the marketing awards given by the Chartered Institute of Marketing - Travel Industry Group (CIMTIG) may seem boring and irrelevent, but this is important/influential stuff.

Only today I received a round-robin email from a national tourist office asking for advice, opinions and examples of what makes a good tourism org website because they are about to update theirs.

Well, tonight Black Tomato won Best Travel Website. Ok, it's a tour operator not a destination, but it's now a benchmark.

Eg. "Give me an example of a really good travel company website".... er, well, Black Tomato by definition.

And that means you - the journo/blogger or consumer - will encounter more travel company websites structured, styled and with content like Black Tomato, more online ad campaigns like Tourism Ireland's & TV ad campaigns like Visit Wales, and (thankfully) cheeky & stylish 'rockstar' marketing like Virgin Atlantic.

Now tell me that isn't important.