Lloret de Mar, 7 February 2019

The holiday apartment entrepreneur Lluís Torrent i Suñé, the Association of Diving Tourism Centres, RCR Aranda Pigem Vilalta Arquitectes and Josep Font i Casadevall were given G! Awards in the honorary category. The G! Tourism Communication Awards were granted for work published and disseminated in Lonely Planet Traveller magazine, on the Independent Travel Cats travel blog, by the French public television broadcaster TF1 and on the YouTube channel Saucepan Kids. Lastly, the Yvette Barbaza Research Award was given to the study project “Impact of environmental regeneration measures at Pla de Tudela and La Pletera on tourist demand”.

The thirteenth Girona Counties G! Tourism Awards, organised by the Costa Brava Girona Tourist Board of Girona Provincial Council, brought together three hundred people, including authorities, award-winners and representatives from Girona’s tourism sector. The awards are divided into three categories: honorary, communication, and tourism research.

This year, the awards ceremony took place at 6.30 pm on Thursday 7 February in the Municipal Theatre of Lloret de Mar. The act was chaired by Miquel Noguer, President of Girona Provincial Council and of the Costa Brava Girona Tourist Board. The event is sponsored by CaixaBank.

2018 Girona Counties G! Tourism Awards

Honorary awards

13th G! Josep Pujol i Aulí Award for the Best Professional Career to Lluís Torrent i Suñé, in acknowledgement of his professional career, dedication, effort, values and virtues in the development of tourism in Girona Province and, most particularly, for his significant initiative and contribution in the holiday apartment rental agency sector on the Costa Brava and as head of Ceigrup Torrent API.

13th G! Xiquet Sabater Award for the Best Business Project for “Diving on the Costa Brava, from the pioneers to the present day, a successful tourism experience for over 50 years”, promoted by the companies Triton Diving, Centre d’Immersió Roses, Unisub Estartit and Centre d’Immersió Snorkel. The award acknowledges the excellent work they have done for diving on the Costa Brava, as it is now a thriving tourism activity.

7th G! Jordi Comas i Matamala Special Award to RCR Aranda Pigem Vilalta Arquitectes, for their role as top overseas ambassadors for the culture and identity of the Costa Brava and the Girona Pyrenees.

4th G! Juli Soler i Lobo Special Award to Josep Font i Casadevall, maître of Hotel Sa Punta in Pals, in acknowledgement of his career and personal and professional work in the Costa Brava’s restaurant sector, of the excellence he has brought to the maître’s trade and of his benchmark status in his profession.

Tourism Communication awards

13th Girona Counties G! Tourism Communication Award, in the print media category and with a prize of 5,000 euros, to the Catalan journalist Kris Ubach and photographer Roberto Cano, for the report “Girona and Empordà: land of traditions”, published in Lonely Planet Traveller magazine. The award acknowledges the quality of the content and photography and their contribution to disseminating the Costa Brava’s cultural appeal and values.

13th Girona Counties G! Tourism Communication Award, in the audiovisual media category and with a prize of 5,000 euros, to the French journalist Matthieu Dupont, for the report “Zoom Costa Brava on a motorbike”, broadcast by the French public television broadcaster TF1. The award acknowledges the quality of the images and contents, the audience achieved and dissemination of the scenic and cultural appeal of the Costa Brava and his presentation of the territory as an ideal destination for motorcycling and road touring.

7th Girona Counties G! Tourism Communication Award, in the digital media category and with a prize of 3,000 euros, to the Irish blogger Jessica Norah, for two posts published on the Independent Travel Cats tourism blog. The award acknowledges the quality of the contents and the photography and her contribution to disseminating the tourist appeal of the Costa Brava and the Girona Pyrenees destinations.

3rd Girona Counties G! Tourism Communication Award, in the digital audiovisual media category and with a prize of 3,000 euros to the Irish blogger Debbie Woodward for the series of videos published on the YouTube channel Saucepan Kids. The award acknowledges the quality of the image and contents and the dissemination of the scenic, cultural and culinary appeal of Girona Province and her presentation of the territory as an ideal destination for family tourism.

Yvette Barbaza Research Award

8th G! Yvette Barbaza Research Award for the best research project and with a prize of 6,000 euros, for the proposed project entitled “Impact of environmental regeneration measures at Pla de Tudela and La Pletera on tourist demand”, by Laia Molina and Josep Pueyo. Its purpose is to analyse the social and economic impact of actions performed at Pla de Tudela and La Pletera in Cadaqués and L’Estartit, to determine the usefulness of environmental regeneration projects in influencing the destination’s tourism brand and to attract new demands or complementary products.

The Girona Counties G! Awards are prizes for tourism that the Tourist Board created in 2005 to acknowledge and to reward the track record and good business management of Girona tourism professionals. The tourism communication awards are addressed to promoting awareness overseas of the tourism resources and appeal of the Costa Brava and Girona Pyrenees, while the research award is intended to encourage scientific knowledge of this activity applied to Girona Province.