The very best individuals, teams and venues have been unveiled for 59club’s 12th Annual Awards Ceremony, celebrating excellence across sales, service, operations, retail and management, with some of the highest-profile and best-loved venues in the running for a hospitality industry ‘Oscar’. The glittering affair, hosted by BBC’s Dan Walker will be staged at The Belfry Hotel & Resort, March 3-4 2022, and will once again provide an opportunity for the industry to come together to honor individuals, teams, and venues for their outstanding performance throughout 2021.
The accolades are determined by scores collected from 59clubs impartial mystery shopping team, who evaluate the experience afforded to visitors and prospective members in accordance with 59club’s objective benchmarking criteria. Each venue is judged on its performance in the following areas: sales, service, operations, retail, facilities, food & beverage and management. 59club continues to reflect the very best performances, regardless of a venue’s size, scale or profile and as has been the case in recent years, five of the main titles will be further segmented in to three categories based on the average guest fee charged.
Leading the nominations this year is The Mere Golf Resort & Spa who are vying for awards across eight categories. The Mere have displayed particular strength in the sales arena with six of their nominations spanning the Golf & Leisure Membership Sales departments & Corporate Golf Sales categories. Following closely, The Belfry Hotel & Resort, The Grove and The Vale Resort, are all competing for titles across seven awards.
It is not unusual for the resort properties to be leading the nominations but reflecting the changing nature of the 59club UK family, the world of member clubs is well represented with Branston Golf & Country Club securing five nominations, closely followed by JCB Golf & Country Club and Long Ashton GC with four nominations each and three nominations for Royal Dornoch GC, Panmure GC and Harpenden GC.
A number of venues, teams and individuals are looking to defend the titles which they collected 12 months ago. Special recognition must go to Glenn McNaughton of Long Ashton GC who aspires to be named Food and Beverage Manager of the Year for the third consecutive occasion, whilst Goring and Streatley GC are hoping to see Matt Aplin scoop the Golf Course Manager of the Year for a fourth consecutive year.
59club’s diversification into Spa Experience and Corporate Sales (Meeting & Events and Golf), sees the dawn of two new awards categories, with Eden Hall, Foxhills Club & Resort, Hoar Cross Hall, Rockliffe Hall, The Belfry, The Mere and The Vale in the running to be named “Leading Spa Experience”, while Bernadette Turner (Breadsall Priory Marriott Hotel & Country Club) Ella Faller & Marc Brooks (Forest of Arden Marriott Hotel & Country Club), Elliott Brown (The Grove), Max Cornes (The Mere), and are competing to be crowned “Leading Individual Corporate Golf Sales Performance.”
Looking ahead to the Awards, Will Hewitt, general manager, 59club UK said: “We are delighted to be returning to a live event to celebrate the 12th year of our awards, bringing the 59club family together to reward the outstanding venues, teams and individuals who have delivered excellence in spite of the well documented challenges faced during 2021. The Awards nominations illustrate some outstanding displays of consistency from many of our longest standing partner venues but also some incredible experiences delivered by many of those who have recently come on board. 59club Awards are always hard earned and we look forward to recognizing the highest standards in our industry with an event to remember.”
