{"id":19295,"date":"2014-12-07T02:20:00","date_gmt":"2014-12-07T02:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/lady-elliot-island-eco-resort-double-win-at-the-queensland-tourism-awards-2\/"},"modified":"2014-12-07T02:20:00","modified_gmt":"2014-12-07T02:20:00","slug":"lady-elliot-island-eco-resort-double-win-at-the-queensland-tourism-awards-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/2014\/12\/lady-elliot-island-eco-resort-double-win-at-the-queensland-tourism-awards-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Lady Elliot Island Eco Resort &#8211; Double Win at the Queensland Tourism Awards"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<div style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7569\/15955430701_ea4cd50264_b.jpg\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"426\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7569\/15955430701_ea4cd50264_b.jpg\" width=\"640\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">It was a double celebration at the 30<sup>th<\/sup> Annual Queensland Tourism Awards Gala Ceremony on Friday night when  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ladyelliot.com.au\/\" target=\"_blank\">Lady Elliot Island Eco Resort<\/a> won the highly contested Steve Irwin Award  for Ecotourism and Managing Director Peter Gash was awarded the Marie  Watson-Blake Award for Outstanding Contribution by an Individual.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">Peter was visibly emotional when accepting the Marie Watson-Blake Award:<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cIf  a bloke from the bush can win something like this, it says that every  one of us can achieve what you want to achieve with your dreams. It  comes down to people, each and every one of us believing in what we want  to do and making it happen.\u201d<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">Winning  the Steve Irwin Award for Ecotourism will always hold a special place  in Peter\u2019s heart. Peter and Steve were good friends and Steve would  often take his family to Lady Elliot Island for holidays.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">A message from Peter Gash:<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>Lady  Elliot Island Eco Resort has been a finalist in the Steve Irwin Award  for Ecotourism for the past two years. To finally be honoured with the  Gold really is a dream come true for all of us.<\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>That  we, Lady Elliot Island Eco Resort, have finally managed to achieve the  Gold in this category, bearing Steve\u2019s name, is the realisation of a  long held dream for myself and I am personally extremely humbled by this  outcome.<\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>Steve  was a truly remarkable Man, an Eco Warrior and Environmental Leader  with extraordinary vision and passion for both our Wildlife and our  Environment. His passion and enthusiasm were infectious. Steve brought  great change to the world\u2019s perception of protecting and preserving the  Wildlife and the Environment. It\u2019s unlikely we will ever see another  individual quite like the amazing man Steve was. <\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>I  feel confident that he would be extremely proud of how Terri, Bindi,  Robert and all his beloved Australia Zoo Crew continue to carry his  legacy forward with such grace and commitment.<\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>This  award recognises many years of work, effort, dedication and persistence  by our remarkable Team of passionate and committed people past and  present who have been involved with us over the years on this journey.<\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>This  journey with our Lovely Lady (Lady Elliot Island) has taught me many  lessons. I have grown more aware as time passes that we are all here on  this Earth for a special purpose. We are not here to make a fortune, we  are here to make a difference.<\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>Lady  Elliot Island Eco Resort enjoys that unique and exciting opportunity to  allow families and people to come out for a holiday to enjoy and relax  in an amazing natural environment and explore the wonders of the Great  Barrier Reef. <\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>Yet at the same time we have the privilege of being able to teach and educate on how we can coexist on the planet in the 21<sup>st<\/sup> century while minimising our footprint on this special environment to  guarantee its future sustainability for generations to come.&nbsp; <\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>This  30 year Awards Anniversary remarkably coincides with our entry into  Tourism (Early Ecotourism) when my wife Julie and I commenced Bush  Safari Tours in an old Ford Army Truck throughout the Brisbane Forest  Park. <\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>For  us it has been an amazing and challenging journey and certainly a long  way to where we now find ourselves as Custodians entrusted with the  Stewardship of one of Australia\u2019s most Iconic National Treasures, Lady  Elliot Island on the Southern Great Barrier Reef. <\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">Congratulations  to all the winners and the amazing tourism operators and products in  the Sunshine State! We are so proud to be part of Queensland&#8217;s dynamic  tourism industry and we appreciate your help and support to showcase our  wonderful state to the world <span style=\"font-family: Wingdings;\">J<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">We would also like to take this opportunity to thank Daniel Gschwind and the QTIC team and all the sponsors of the 30<sup>th<\/sup> Annual Queensland Tourism Awards. It was very exciting to be involved in the celebrations of 30 years of Tourism Excellence.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ladyelliot.com.au\/\">www.ladyelliot.com.au<\/a><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/LadyElliotIslandEcoResort\">www.facebook.com\/LadyElliotIslandEcoResort<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.instagram.com\/ladyelliotislandecoresort\">www.instagram.com\/ladyelliotislandecoresort<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was a double celebration at the 30th Annual Queensland Tourism Awards Gala Ceremony on Friday night when Lady Elliot Island Eco Resort won the highly contested Steve Irwin Award for Ecotourism and Managing Director Peter Gash was awarded the Marie Watson-Blake Award for Outstanding Contribution by an Individual. Peter was visibly emotional when accepting [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[278],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-queensland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19295\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}