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LONDON — An award should make its recipient feel good. It acknowledges work, offers encouragement and gives colleagues, communities and countries a reason to share in an achievement.
For Alain St. Ange, receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Africa Tourism Awards on November 1, 2026, provided precisely that moment. For Benin, destination honors offered welcome visibility for a country working to strengthen its position in international tourism.
Both deserve recognition. Their success also raises a wider industry question: how can tourism awards preserve their meaning when the same destinations, personalities and companies appear so frequently on winners’ lists?
The ceremony at Hilton London Canary Wharf came two days before World Travel Market London, scheduled for November 3–5 at Excel London. Its timing placed African tourism recognition alongside one of the travel trade’s major business gatherings.
Africa Tourism Awards – Celebrating Excellence, Inspiring Tomorrow
St. Ange’s honor has a recognizable foundation
St. Ange’s reaction captured the personal and national significance of the evening.
“As a Seychellois, I felt proud to see the world of tourism recognising my years of service to the tourism industry. I was honoured to have our High Commission officials by my side when I was called on stage to receive the most acclaimed award of the night. Seychelles continues to punch above its weight,” St. Ange told Seychelles News Agency.
SNA reported that Acting Seychelles High Commissioner Patsy Mustache and Senior Counselor Wendy Isnard attended. According to the organizers, the award recognized his work raising Seychelles’ tourism profile, supporting regional cooperation and advocating tourism that benefits local communities.
That explanation reflects a substantive career. St. Ange led the Seychelles Tourism Board, served as tourism minister, and helped develop cooperation through the Indian Ocean Vanilla Islands initiative, as well as serving as the Vice President of the African Tourism Board.
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In this article’s assessment, that makes the lifetime honor a defensible recognition of service. Its rationale can be understood through a professional record, without assuming a direct commercial transaction behind the trophy. No evidence reviewed for this article establishes that St. Ange purchased the honor or that it was conditional on a commercial arrangement.
St. Ange is also an active communicator whose activities and statements receive publicity. His visibility is part of his professional profile. It should neither automatically validate every honor nor diminish genuine achievements. Familiarity with a name and evidence of a contribution are different things; a credible award should explain the latter.
Craig Rix also received a Lifetime Achievement Award. The advance announcement highlighted his work building Travel Africa magazine, launched in 1997, and encouraging international audiences to explore the continent.
Benin has good reason to celebrate
Benin’s recognition has a different value: helping an emerging destination attract attention in a crowded marketplace.
Its wins covered Country Destination of the Year, Cultural Destination of the Year and Tourism Board of the Year, with a fourth award for the promotional film Explore Benin, A World of Wonders.
Benin’s visibility and appeal across key tourism markets
Benin also publicized its success through an official press release, according to information supplied for this article. The pride is understandable. For a developing tourism destination, an international honor provides a news opportunity and a way to introduce its offering to buyers and travelers.
The press statement issued by the Benin Government said: This recognition reflects the progress achieved through the ambitious tourism policy pursued by the Government of the Republic of Benin, which has made tourism a central pillar of its national development strategy and a driver of economic growth and cultural expression.
Heritage restoration and enhancement, the development of next-generation cultural and tourism facilities, infrastructure modernization and the expansion of the country’s tourism offering have all contributed to a far-reaching transformation of the destination. These substantial public investments are complemented by an international promotion strategy aimed at strengthening
Even before the ceremony, Africanews had reported Benin’s four nominations. That publicity illustrates one practical benefit of an awards campaign: exposure begins before a trophy is presented.
The distinction is between recognizing progress and declaring a universal ranking. Benin’s success can reward its efforts without proving that every aspect of its tourism offering outperforms every other African destination.
The lasting test will be whether attention supports visitor demand, local enterprises, cultural preservation and better tourism experiences.
Who created the awards?
The London program is relatively young. Its inaugural pan-African gala took place on November 2, 2025, making 2026 its second London edition.
Launch coverage identifies Efetobo Awhana as founder and Sithembile Sandla as co-founder. In a September 2025 interview with African Travel Times, Awhana traced its roots to Nigeria in 2017 through the Balearica Project, Nigeria Travel Week and Nigeria Tourism Awards.
That earlier work supplies background, but should not be confused with a decade of London ceremonies. The current platform operates under the Balearica name, associated with the crowned crane represented in its trophy.
Awhana’s explanation of the London location was commercially coherent: the city offers international connections, a diaspora audience and access to tourism decision-makers gathering for WTM week
Recognition is also a business
The organizer openly markets sponsorship, corporate tables, publicity and branding. Available opportunities include category sponsorship, onstage presentations and advertising. Its partnership page offers cash, barter and mixed arrangements.
These are ordinary event-business activities. They can fund a worthwhile platform and create useful industry connections.
The key boundary is between buying visibility and influencing an outcome. Sponsors should know what they are purchasing; finalists and readers should understand what sponsors cannot purchase.
Nominations were advertised as free. However, published procedures allow nominees to bear inspection costs, including complimentary hotel stays for inspections. The process also gives self-nominations priority during shortlisting.
These arrangements deserve clear explanation. Neither proves that a result was bought, but both affect how the competition operates and how independent its assessment appears.
Ethiopian Airlines: A winner and a reported major partner
Ethiopian Airlines received International Airline of the Year. Ethiopian Skylight Hotel won Luxury Hotel of the Year, while Ethiopian Skylight Hospitality Group received special recognition for tourism investment.
Ethiopian Airlines was also identified as a major partner in information supplied to eTurboNews for this article. The public sources reviewed did not independently establish the precise nature or value of that reported relationship.
That distinction matters. A company can be both a deserving winner and an event supporter. A partnership does not establish that an award was purchased or improperly influenced.
It does make disclosure especially valuable. Organizers should explain the support provided, the separation between commercial negotiations and judging, and any relevant recusals. Transparency protects the airline’s achievement as much as the awards’ reputation.
What the judging formula tells us
The organizer publishes a weighted system: 40% judges, 40% Balearica Awards College and 20% public voting.
A formula is useful, but it is only the beginning of accountability. The reviewed material did not provide the category-level score breakdowns and comparative explanations needed to reconstruct individual competitive decisions.
Readers should therefore understand these as awards conferred through a particular program, with its own nominees and rules. They are not a comprehensive audit of African tourism quality.
Other announced winners included FlySafair for regional airline, ONOMO for hotel group, Kruger Shalati for safari lodge and Swakopmund for adventure destination. Their recognition is welcome; explaining the decisive achievements would make it more informative.
Opinion: tourism’s everyday heroes deserve a place on the stage
The tourism world seems to have more awards than anyone can count. It certainly has more destinations, attractions, hotels and airlines than any one person could ever experience, let alone name.
The scale of its workforce makes the familiar awards circuit look smaller still. The World Travel & Tourism Council estimates that tourism supported 366 million jobs in 2025—approximately one in nine jobs worldwide. Its May 2026 forecast puts employment supported by the sector at 376 million this year, including its wider economic effects.
Across an industry of that size, award-worthy work happens every day. Sometimes it is heroic: a guide protecting visitors during an emergency, a hotel employee helping a guest in distress, or a community keeping its tourism businesses alive through a crisis. Sometimes it is quieter: an attraction improving accessibility, a small accommodation provider preserving local heritage, or a driver whose care transforms a difficult journey.
Too often, such contributions are treated as routine. The people behind them may lack a public relations team, an international profile or the resources to attend a London gala. They are the smaller players, and too easily they are treated as less important.
They are not less important to the traveler they helped, the community they supported or the destination they represent.
That is why this publication supports, and has helped develop, the Amazing Travel Award: to encourage recognition of people, destinations and businesses whose contributions deserve attention, including those outside the usual spotlight. Its published approach welcomes nominations across professional ranks, from ministers and managers to drivers, shopkeepers and dishwashers.
Amazing Travel Awards – Amazing Travel Awards
Recognized by the World Tourism Network: Travel and Tourism Heroes, destinations, hotels, airlines, attractions and stakeholders. Always FREE
Our involvement should be clear to readers. It also obliges us to apply the same standards of fairness, transparency and meaningful recognition that we ask of other awards.
Supporting overlooked contributors does not diminish our pleasure in celebrating the people we hear from every day: the established leaders, the big movers and shakers, and the professionals who have devoted decades to the industry we work in and love. St. Ange’s lifetime recognition can be deserved while an unknown tourism worker’s contribution deserves a stage of its own.
Repeated recognition can be justified. Excellence endures, and a lifetime contribution does not disappear because another organization has already honored it. But repetition increases the responsibility to explain why this award matters and, for an annual category, what specifically changed or improved this year.
The danger comes when familiarity becomes a qualification in itself, or when the ability to attract publicity outweighs the achievement being recognised. An awards programme should help us discover excellence as well as applaud names we already know.
Tourism has room to celebrate its famous leaders and its everyday heroes. Recognition becomes more valuable when it helps the rest of us see both.
The danger of award saturation
The wider concern extends beyond this London event.
When tourism organizations multiply categories and ceremonies, a trophy risks becoming routine publicity. If familiar names repeatedly dominate, readers can struggle to distinguish a significant achievement from another appearance on the awards circuit.
Repeated recognition can be entirely justified. Excellence can endure, and a lifetime contribution does not disappear because another organization has already honored it.
But repetition increases the responsibility to explain the distinction: why this award, why this recipient and, for an annual category, what specifically changed or improved this year?
There is also a visibility problem. Established brands and public figures can mobilize audiences, distribute announcements and command media attention. Smaller businesses doing exceptional work may have less capacity to campaign for recognition. Public participation is valuable, but popularity should not quietly become a substitute for quality.
Awards should help the industry discover achievement as well as applaud people it already knows.
Make the honor worth more than the publicity
St. Ange’s pride deserves respect. Benin’s enthusiasm deserves encouragement. Recognizing service and helping an emerging destination reach new audiences are worthwhile outcomes.
The next step is to make the evidence as visible as the celebration: publish meaningful winner citations, explain competitive decisions, disclose commercial relationships, and distinguish lifetime honors from annual performance awards.
The available evidence does not justify alleging bought trophies. It does justify asking the industry to be more selective and more precise about what a trophy means.
A successful awards evening makes its recipients feel appreciated. A credible awards program also gives everyone outside the ballroom a clear reason to agree.
