Hotel Icon is the only finalist from Greater
China – and the lone hotel – in the coveted United Nation’s World
Tourism Organisation Awards for Excellence and Innovation in
Tourism 2013.
Hong Kong’s Hotel Icon is one of four finalists for
the Award for Innovation in Enterprises, also known as the Ulysses
Award for Innovation.
The award acknowledges the world’s best
tourism initiatives that are both sustainable and profitable.
According to the United Nations, they are the “flagship awards for
the global tourism sector”.
Hotel Icon is the only hotel among
the
13 finalists and one of the few projects that is commercially
sustainable. The list of finalists in this year’s UNWTO Awards is
dominated by non-governmental organisations involved in
conservation, and government-sponsored tourism promotion
initiatives.
Representing Asia in the awards line-up are
Hotel Icon, Borneo Ecotourism Solutions and Technologies Society
from Malaysia, and the Korean Tourism Organisation from South
Korea.
Hotel Icon earned a place among the finalists for
its commitment to integrating teaching, learning and research into
a 262-room luxury hotel, with five-star finishes.
The property in
the Tsim Sha Tsui tourism district is managed to the highest standards of good governance with a mandate to maximise revenues,
with the profits invested in education of students from across
Asia.
“It is a huge honour to be nominated for this award
and a wonderful acknowledgement of the effort our team puts into innovation and training,” said Richard Hatter, General Manager of
Hotel Icon. “I am extremely proud that our efforts have been recognised. We are a hotel with a purpose. We develop industry
leaders through hands-on training in an open-minded environment.
Our purpose-built hotel is their laboratory ... Being
recognised by the wider industry shows that Hotel Icon is a
premier property, on par with any hotel in the world.”
Hotel Icon was founded in 2011 as part of the School of Hotel and
Tourism Management at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. It is
the world’s first teaching and research hotel to offer co-located,
co-lead hospitality programmes.
Hotel Icon has 262 guest
rooms and suites, three food and beverage outlets, an Angsana Spa
featuring professional therapists from the Banyan Tree Hotels and
Resorts, a state-of-the-art gym, and an outdoor swimming pool
overlooking Victoria Harbour.
The
presentation ceremony for the United Nations World Tourism
Organisation Awards takes place at Fitur, an international tourism
trade fair, in Madrid on 22 January 2014.
PolyU,
UNWTO,
Ulysses,
Hong Kong
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