Destination Golf Global Guide (Winter 2018) * | Page 69

Golf resorts and golf
destinations across the globe
have been honoured at a
gala dinner to mark the 2019
IAGTO Awards in Slovenia
capital Ljubljana.
The winning destinations in the golf tourism industry’s
annual celebration of excellence are Spain’s Costa del
Sol and Logroño-La Rioja regions, Dominican Republic,
Mauritius, Hua Hin in Thailand and Scottsdale, in Arizona.
Golf resort awards were scooped up by Scotland’s
Gleneagles, the Fairmont Chateau Whistler, in Canadian
province British Columbia, and Mission Hills Haikou, on
China’s tropical paradise island of Hainan.
Besides the IAGTO Awards – organised by global
golf tourism trade organisation IAGTO (International
Association of Golf Tour Operators) – a further four
golf resorts were lauded for their environmental and
community efforts in the 2019 IAGTO Sustainability
Awards. Run in conjunction with non-profit golf
sustainability body GEO Foundation, they have been
held for the last six years. The 2019 winners are: Italy’s
Gardagolf Country Club; Jack’s Point Golf, in New
Zealand; Al Mouj Golf, in Oman; and Portugal’s Vidago
Palace, which is only the second recipient of a Special
Award.
The winners were announced to 1,200 international golf
tourism delegates at the gala dinner, which was held in
the Ljubljana Exhibition & Convention Centre at the end
of the 21st International Golf Travel Market.
IAGTO Chief Executive Peter Walton said: “With our
annual Golf Tourism Awards now in their 19th year, it is
inevitable and expected that a number of tonight’s Award
winners were receiving this highest of accolades for the
second or third time. But there were also some stand-out
first time winners including the Costa del Sol deservedly
being voted European Golf Destination of the Year,
and on the other end of the scale but also in Spain, the
evocative region of Logroño-La Rioja being nominated
Undiscovered Golf Destination of the Year by the world’s
leading golf travel writers.”
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