Helping you to prepare your WA Tourism Awards Submission!

Plan Ahead

• Plan early to devote the time to the project.
• Get all your staff involved. This not only helps ease the workload, it also builds their enthusiasm and ownership of the project.
• Treat your submission as a three year business plan. It may take a lot of work to get your first submission together, but next year it will be easier and the year after even easier still as the basis will already be there.
  Get organised early. Don’t leave your submission to the last minute.
• Prepare each section in bullet point form first then flesh it out. That way you ensure you cover all points in the space allowed.
• Read the rules thoroughly. (Then read them again!). Don’t lose points for not following the rules. These points could mean the difference to being the winner.

Writing the Submission

• Answer every question fully including all sub-section. Incomplete responses to questions are heavily marked down.
• Try to put some emotion or personality into the submission – judges want to feel the passion! Show how much your business means to you and your customers.
• Make the submission easy to read. The easier the information is to find, the better. If you don’t have enough space, you’ve probably got too much irrelevant information.
• Use graphics, tables and graphs to illustrate and emphasis important items.
• Avoid overuse of the first person pronoun if the submission is on behalf of a business.
• It’s about the process. Don’t leave out the “why” when detailing actions and outcomes.
• Don’t assume the judges will know about your business. This is particularly important if you were to win a WA Award as the national judges often know little about WA operators.
• Put sub-question headings above relevant responses.
• Don’t run out of steam. It’s a fact for many submissions the responses to later number questions are not as focused as those earlier in the submissions, resulting in mark downs.
• Keep it simple. Don’t use fancy or shiny paper. These can be hard to read at night when the judges are often reading them.
• Nice wide margins make the submission easier to read.
• If using a previous year’s submission for assistance, be mindful of question changes.

Wrapping Up

• Edit copy again and again. Responses should only contain information relevant to the particular question to avoid confusion.
• Give it to an objective person to proof read and edit before you submit it.
• Get a second (and third) opinion. Have someone read your submission and critique your responses to the questions. They could be someone who knows your business well and perhaps someone that doesn’t.
• Print out the final copy before you need to, last minute computer glitches always seem to happen when you’re in a hurry!
• Try to get the submission in at least a week before the deadline to relieve the stress & pressure.