23/04/2009

Venus wins Gold Oscar


Venus is England’s leading environmentally friendly beach café and shop operator and that’s official!

At the Enjoy England for Excellence Awards event last night at the National Railway Museum in York, Venus Company owners, Michael and Louisa Smith were thrilled to win Gold in the National Sustainable Tourism Award category. Venus was one of three sustainable tourism national finalists.

The Awards organised by Visit Britain, reward the very best in tourism through a rigorous and independent judging process and act as a quality benchmark to the industry and to customers.

The win tops a hat trick of major awards for Venus within twelve months. In 2008, Venus won the British Small Business Champion Awards, Southern Area, a Business in the Community Big Tick and Impact on Society Small Company Award and Gold Award in the Tourism Excellence Awards for South West of England.

The company, based near Dartmouth in South Devon, has operations at five stunning beach locations in Devon and Cornwall, most recently opening a Venus Café at Watergate Bay at the end of last year. Venus Cafés offer customers alfresco Mediterranean style eating and the business ethos is quite simply “Loving the Beach”. The family owned business set up in 1995, has created a successful brand renowned for quality and corporate responsibility.

Michael Smith, Venus managing director and co-founder along with wife Louisa and Lee Porter, is over the moon. He said: “To win this top England for Excellence Award is just fantastic! Everyone at Venus works so hard to ensure that we never stand still in our mission to be the greenest beach café and shop operator. It is really motivating that all our efforts to run a successful sustainable tourism business are recognised with this amazing tribute in the face of really stiff competition.”

Ends