Kingsville folk fest, Caesars Windsor and Adriano Ciotoli finalists for tourism awards
The Kingsville Folk Music Festival, Caesars Windsor and Adriano Ciotoli of WindsorEats have been named finalists in this year’s Ontario Tourism Awards.
The four-year-old Kingsville Folk Music Festival is up for two awards, including tourism event of the year and an accessible tourism award. The festival of the Sun Parlour Folk Music Society was named a finalist along with the 2016 World Cup of Hockey and Lumina Borealis, an interactive winter night walk through Kingston’s Fort Henry.
“I was really excited,” Kingsville Folk Music Festival founder and producer Michele Law said Wednesday. “We had our first board meeting last night after this year’s festival and everyone was very excited and honoured just to be nominated.”
The festival was named a finalist for the tourism event of the year two years ago but didn’t win. She said about 1,500 to 2,000 people attend each day of the three-day event and the nomination is a boost for the volunteers involved.
“We’re all kind of in an area of Ontario that I don’t feel gets a lot of recognition so I think it’s really important that all of us are being recognized for the work we do,” Law said of the other finalists. It’s the second time Adriano Ciotoli of WindsorEats has been a finalist for tourism champion of the year for his promotion of Windsor and Essex County as a culinary tourism destination. He called his second nomination incredibly humbling.
Caesars Windsor was nominated as a tourism employer of the year.
Kevin Laforet, regional president of Caesars Entertainment, said in a release that Caesars Windsor was honoured to be named a finalist.
The company also received the 2017 Forbes Best Employer Award by Forbes magazine.
The Ontario Tourism Awards of Excellence are jointly presented by the Tourism Industry Association of Ontario, the Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership Corporation, the Culinary Tourism Alliance and Attractions Ontario.
Finalists for the Culinary Tourism Awards and Tourism Marketing and Travel media awards are to be announced in the coming weeks. The award winners are announced Nov. 7 at the Ontario Tourism Summit in Niagara Falls.