Tourism Red Deer’s Visitor Information Centre was recognized with a Service Excellence Award at the 10th annual Alto Awards ceremony held in Banff on Monday night.
Tourism award winners were announced at Travel Alberta’s annual conference.
In 2009, the Red Deer tourism centre set a new record with 77,749 people walking through its doors. About 74,000 came through in 2008.
“Between our residents and visitors, they know it’s a good spot to come to reach their destinations or other travel information they’re looking for,” said Darren Kuz, executive director of Tourism Red Deer, on Tuesday.
The government-accredited visitor centre, located north of the 32nd Street overpass on Hwy 2 in the same building as the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame and Museum, always earns high marks from industry inspectors known as “mystery shoppers,” he said.
“We want to engage visitors when they walk in the door. We want to get them the information they’re looking for or assist them in any way to make their visit to our area as pleasant as possible.”
Tourism Red Deer’s Visitor Information Centre was the only finalist in the service excellence award category. Other categories had three finalists from which the winner was chosen.
“We’re still very proud of the award. We take great pride in the service standard,” Kuz said on Tuesday.
Discovery Wildlife Park at Innisfail was a finalist in Sustainable Tourism category but the award went to Mount Engadine Lodge in Canmore.
Alto finalists and winners are determined by independent evaluation by a team of 24 industry volunteer judges.
szielinski@www.reddeeradvocate.com