Tuesday, April 8, 2003
The best of the Garden State's tourism industry have been cited for the New Jersey Governor's Tourism Awards and Atlantic County Executive Dennis Levinson is among the elite group of honorees. The awards will be presented at the 2003 Governor's Conference on Tourism, April 10 & 11 at the Trump Marina Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City.
Levinson will receive the Governor's Leadership Award for Elected Officials based on his extensive work in encouraging a regional approach to tourism in the Atlantic County area. Levinson has been a strong advocate of a "no boundaries, no borders" approach to promoting southern New Jersey as a tourist destination. He played a key role in the publication of southern New Jersey's first regional tourism guide that will be available for distribution this summer. In order to assure better coordination and communication among tourism agencies, Levinson established Atlantic County's first permanent Tourism Advisory Board in February 2003.
Levinson said he is deeply honored to receive the Governor's Tourism Award. "It is a special honor when your efforts are recognized by others outside your own area. I am grateful to be chosen from among elected officials throughout the state who share my goal of attracting visitors. I am proud to stand among them and be part of a comprehensive effort to promote regional tourism."
Tourism is the state's second largest industry and according to Nancy Byrne, Executive Director of the state Office of Travel & Tourism, this conference has become one of the state's most important tourism industry events. "It's a venue to explore and develop ways of attracting visitors to a state that may be small, but has an amazing number of diverse attractions," she said.
The two-day conference will include a series of symposia and workshops in addition to the presentation of the awards. Honorees will be recognized in the following nine categories: advertising/marketing/PR campaign; economic development; eco-tourism; elected official leadership; heritage tourism; multi-cultural; partnership; special events; and a Pinnacle Award of Excellence presented to an individual who has worked for the betterment of state tourism as a whole.
For more information, please contact Howard Kyle at (609) 343-2223.