From Caribbean News Now

LONDON, England — World Travel Awards has been forced to postpone its annual Caribbean and North America Gala Ceremony until April 2015. The event had been due to take place in Anguilla on October 24.

However, the recent impact of Hurricane Gonzalo on the island disrupted preparations and made the hosting of the event impossible.

World Travel Awards president Graham Cooke said: “It is with great sadness that we have been forced to postpone one of the most popular events on our annual Grand Tour. Despite being one of the most highly anticipated events in the regional tourism calendar, the damage caused by the recent Hurricane Gonzalo has made hosting the event impossible at this time.

“We, however, will persevere. Arrangements are currently being put in place to ensure World Travel Awards can successfully visit the island in 2015. We will release details as soon as they become available.”

World Travel Awards winners in the Caribbean and North American region will, however, still be revealed on October 24.

“Hurricane Gonzalo impacted Anguilla in a manner that was unexpected and hit us directly. It evolved from a tropical storm to a hurricane in a very short time and damaged our tourism, plants, including our vegetation, and electrical grid. We expect to have a full recovery by November 1. Unfortunately, this will not be sufficient time to welcome the World Travel Awards,” said Haydn Hughes, parliamentary secretary and first nominated member with responsibility for tourism and sports.

Anguilla Tourist Board chairman, Bonnie Bloom, added: “We remain committed to ensuring that we will deliver the full Anguilla Experience as host of the World Travel Awards. We will continue to cement our promise to uphold the integrity of our beautiful island paradise, while also sharing Anguilla and its luminous treasures with the world.”

The Caribbean and North America Gala Ceremony was the final planned stop on the World Travel Awards Grand Tour 2014.

With the tour now complete, attention will turn to the World Travel Awards Grand Final, scheduled to take place in Marrakech, Morocco, on November 29.

World Travel Awards was established in 1993 to acknowledge, reward and celebrate excellence across all sectors of the tourism industry. Today, the WTA brand is recognised globally as the ultimate hallmark of quality, with winners setting the benchmark to which all others aspire.

In 2014, WTA will celebrate its historic 21st anniversary year.

The annual programme is renowned as the most prestigious and comprehensive in the travel and tourism industry. In 2013, over 500,000 individual votes were cast by travel professionals and high-end tourism consumers.

Each year WTA covers the globe with a series of regional gala ceremonies staged to recognise and celebrate individual and collective successes within each key geographical region.

The Grand Tour of WTA gala ceremonies are regarded as milestone events in the industry calendar, attended by the industry’s key decision makers, chief figure heads and the leading trade and consumer media.

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