TMI Award Winners

The Tourism Management Institute (TMI) – the professional organisation for people studying and working in tourism destination management - is delighted to announce the winners of the 2022 TMI Student Awards.

Our winner of the 2022 David Hughes Memorial Award (for undergraduates) is:

• Annabelle Whitaker of the University of Chester

Annabelle, who has just completed the second year of her BA (Hons) International Tourism Management (with Spanish) degree, based her application on her very successful placement with Chester Zoo this spring. The judging panel was particularly impressed with how Annabelle used this experience to consolidate her academic learning.  She demonstrated a very mature understanding of the visitor journey, the challenges and complexities of visitor management, as well as the key role this leading visitor attraction has within the wider destination.

In addition, the panel awarded a special commendation to:

• Gaby Beaton of Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen

Gaby’s submission was based on her excellent research project for Visit Aberdeenshire on ‘What makes a Christmas market successful for stakeholders?’  She demonstrated a very mature understanding of the complexities of stakeholder management and the challenges it brings for destinations as well as the key contribution events can make to the development of destinations.

Our joint winners of the 2022 Simon Curtis Postgraduate Prize are:

• Rose Lartey of the University of Plymouth
• Michael Rankin of Glasgow Caledonian University

Rose, as part of her MSc Tourism and Hospitality Management degree, successfully delivered a highly relevant research project on ‘Experiential tourism: The key to developing Ghana’s Touriscape’.  Her project concluded that for experiential tourism to be viable, it must be developed ensuring it delivers benefits to the tourist but equally importantly to the local community. Creating a partnership with the local community is essential to long-term destination success.

Michael, as part of his MSc International Tourism and Events Management degree, based his research project on ‘Investigating the consumer connection to iconic music venues and its relationship with tourism in the UK’.  Based on Glasgow and its strong reputation as a highly successful music city, he very effectively highlighted the key economic and cultural contribution which iconic music venues can make to the destination and the critical role they can play in enhancing the destination’s future development.

TMI’s Head of CPD Maeve Marmion comments:

‘I am delighted to congratulate Annabelle, Rose and Michael as very worthy winners of our 2022 TMI Awards.  It is fantastic to see that they have succeeded in delivering such high quality projects which have proved to be so valuable to the respective destinations. This work has given them valuable practical experience which will undoubtedly enhance their future career prospects.  We at TMI wish them all the very best for the future.

On behalf of the panel I also congratulate Gaby on her special commendation which was very well deserved.  We would like to thank all students studying TMI recognised degree programmes who put forward applications for this year’s awards.  It was a competitive round and the quality of submissions extremely high.  It is great to see how engaged our future destination professionals are in their chosen specialist fields of tourism.’

These annual awards are a very important way for TMI to recognise the achievements of both undergraduate and postgraduate students on recognised TMI degree programmes who have undertaken a relevant work placement or research project as part of their degree. The awards demonstrate how they have successfully applied their academic knowledge by actively working with a destination management/tourism organisation here in the UK or overseas.

All three award winners will receive a one-to-one professional mentoring session with a senior member of TMI as well as a complimentary place at the TMI Annual Convention on 19/20 October, the opportunity to write a blog for the TMI website on their placement/project as well as one year’s associate membership of TMI.

We would finally like to thank the relevant tourism organisations and professionals for their ongoing support of our students in offering meaningful placements and actively supporting research projects within their destinations.

Further information: 

• Joyce Cawthorpe, CPD Co-ordinator, TMI E: cpd@tmi.org.uk; M: 07590 123299

Notes:

1. The annual TMI David Hughes Memorial Award was launched in 2012 in honour of former TMI President David Hughes, who tragically died in December 2011.
2. The TMI Postgraduate Prize was launched in 2015 and renamed the Simon Curtis Postgraduate Prize in 2019 in honour of TMI past President Simon Curtis, following his death in January 2019.
3. Please refer to the TMI website tmi.org.uk for a full list of the tourism and management degree programmes recognised by TMI.
4. The Tourism Management Institute (TMI) is the national professional body for tourism destination management.