Tourism Award

For Hans Rissmann, chief executive of the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC), winning last year's Tourism Award was more than just getting up on stage at the awards ceremony. "Receiving the award was just the starting point," he says. "Now I feel the responsibility of living up to it and that puts what we do even further under scrutiny."

The 1999 Tourism award Catey now holds centre stage in the EICC's award cabinet and staff proudly show it off. This collective pride has had a knock-on effect on the whole team. "The staff were just as excited as I was," says Rissmann. "It really was like receiving a collective Oscar."

When the EICC opened in 1995, Rissmann vowed that it would attract a steady influx of high-spending international visitors and would bring business life to Edinburgh's traditionally bleak winter months between November and March. These promises were quickly fulfilled and figures produced by the International Congress and Convention Association since the EICC opened show that the Scottish capital has risen up the ranks from 47th to 13th place in the league table of international conference destinations.

Forecasts suggest that by 2008, the centre will have brought £55m of revenue to the area. Rissmann has also spearheaded many global sales missions including Burn's suppers in Munich, Geneva and Brussels and St Andrew's night events in London. These initiatives brought £475,000 of foreign business to the conference centre.

In contrast, the 1998 award was shared by Sarah Whaley of the ETB (now the English Tourism Council); Linda Astbury of the RAC; and Albert Hampson of the AA. This trio was recognised for their work in creating a unified classification scheme for hotels, guesthouses and bed and breakfasts. They worked together for the best part of three years to create order from the chaos.

Other past winners of this award include: Cairns Boston, chairman of the Land's End and John O'Groats Company; James Hoseason of Hoseason's Holidays; Kit Chapman of the Castle Hotel at Taunton, Somerset; Anne Davies of Holiday Care Services (which provides holiday information for disabled people); Victor Middleton, co-founder of the Tourism Society and Ken Robinson, one of the brains behind the Millennium Dome.

With travel and tourism worth more than £50b to the UK economy, the search is now on for the 2000 winner of the Tourism Catey.

The hospitality industry provides jobs for 1.5 million people and generates one in five of all new jobs. It is this significance and its link with the restaurant and hotel trade that the Tourism Award is designed to recognise. It honours one person or a team of people who have made an outstanding contribution to the standards of tourism in the UK. The award allows for a range of people to be nominated, not just well-known figures or high-flyers.

To nominate someone for the Tourism Award, obtain a nomination form from Sarah Sutton on Tel: 020 8652 8349. If you wish, enclose a supporting statement of no more than 200 words. The closing date for nominations is Friday3 March, 2000 and judging will take place at the Merchant Centre in the City of London on Monday 8 May.