NSW Tourism Awards were held at the White Bay Cruise Terminal in Rozelle on Thursday 8th November.
Love Lord Howe was nominated in two categories; Tourism Restaurants and Catering Services as well as Excellence in Food Tourism. Danielle and Alasdair Nicolson attended the gala event with Love Lord Howe nominated alongside seventy other NSW tourism based businesses who had scored over 70 per cent in their award applications.
The Tourism Restaurants and Catering Services category was announced early in the evening. The deserving gold winner was Potager – A Kitchen Garden, located in Carool, Love Lord Howe won Silver and Margan Wines and Restaurant, located in Broke landed Bronze. There were many impressive finalists in this category, including Three Blue Ducks in Nimbo.
Later that evening, Love Lord Howe then won gold for Excellence in Food Tourism, with Food I am in Wagga Wagga taking home Silver.
This win automatically enters Love Lord Howe into the Australian Tourism Awards, to be held in Darwin on 15th March 2024. Here they will compete against each state finalist in the Excellence in Food Tourism category.
In her acceptance speech, Danielle said:
‘I would like to thank my husband who is my ‘not so’ silent partner in this business. I would also like to thank the Lord Howe Island Community. Lord Howe is beautiful, very close knit community and there is not a lodge that has not been supportive of my business and I thank them with all my heart.
I work with some absolutely wonderful women on our Island – up until a week ago, Lord Howe Island fell into the only 3 per cent of Australia where there was no access to any formal childcare or preschool and as of last week we finally have a formal service which is very exciting. I started Love Lord Howe as I had trouble working with my young children and I wanted to offer work opportunities to other women which I have now done, and now hopefully even more women can work for me on our Island.’
This article appeared in The Lord Howe Island Signal, 30 November 2023.
