About the Awards
The name Halamoana (“the movement of the traffic towards their destination”) is derived from an iconic sculpture by local artist Sopoemalama Filipe Tohi. It has been selected because of the synergy between its denotation; our culture, the Taranaki coast and the importance of acknowledging individual local hospitality excellence in pursuit of their destination.
2011 see’s the Halamoana Hospitality Awards in its sixth year and each year the awards have gone from strength to strength. The key goal behind the awards is to allow peer recognition of distinction within the Taranaki hospitality industry.
As New Zealand’s single largest employer the pursuit of excellence has helped shape the industry with our aim to encourage and profile outstanding achievement to create longevity and sustainability within our region.
This year will also be the third year for two of the newer aspects of the awards – The Excellence Award and the Halamoana Scholarship. 2009 saw the inaugural presentation of the Excellent Awards, presented to any person or establishment who has won their category three times, it also saw the first presentation of the Halamoana Scholarship which was awarded to Erin Aldridge. In 2010 there were more Excellence Awards and the second year of the scholarship being awarded, this time to Aaron Locke. We are hoping that 2011 will be our strongest year for scholarship applications and we encourage anyone in the industry to apply.
2011 also sees some changes to the categories with the merging of the various ‘bars’, eg; sports bar, tavern, nightclub, etc to create Outstanding Bar and the removal of the Outstanding Wine List. This made way for two new categories specifically to recognise the huge contribution that South Taranaki makes to the industry. These are Outstanding South Taranaki Personality and Outstanding South Taranaki Establishment.