LCN Lifetime Achievement Award for veteran hotelier, John
Veteran hotelier, John Williamson MBE, proprietor of The Valley Hotel in Fivemiletown, is the recipient of the Licensed & Catering News Lifetime Achievement Award for 2017, sponsored by RiverRidge.
John, his wife, Sally and several members of the Williamson family were at the Europa Hotel in Belfast on Friday evening to see the award presented during the Licensed & Catering News gala evening.
““Winning this award was a huge surprise. I’m gobsmacked. It’s a real honour, and fantastic to be here surrounded by my family and to be recognised in this way,” John said afterwards.
John is now one of a growing number of successful hospitality figures from Northern Ireland who have received the LCN Lifetime Achievement Award. Past recipients have included hoteliers Francis Brady, Lord Diljit Rana and Sir William Hastings and Belfast licensee, Patsy Lavery.
The Lifetime Achievement Award was one of 17 distributed on Friday evening during the seventh Licensed & Catering News Gala Awards in the Europa.
The event was attended by more than 450 guests from across the hospitality sector, including representatives of key local companies and trade bodies and many rank-and-file members of Northern Ireland’s thriving licensed, catering and accommodation sectors.
The overall sponsor for the 2017 LCN Awards was linen services provider, Linencare and the event was supported by TourismNI and media partner, Q Radio, who staged a live broadcast in the foyer of the Europa at the beginning of the evening.
The awards, which are independently judged by Spotcheck NI, were presented by broadcaster, Pamela Ballantine and Q Radio breakfast show host, Stephen Clements.
Publishing since 1940, Licensed & Catering News is now the oldest B2B publication in Northern Ireland.
The LCN Awards have been running since 2009 and are now the premier awards event for the hospitality sector in Northern Ireland.
Declaring Friday evening’s gala awards a complete success, organiser, Bill Penton, said that he was delighted to be able to recognise and reward excellence within a sector known for its resilience and creativity:
“These awards are now the leading local hospitality showcase and the finalists this year were venues and individuals from all over the country,” he added. “It has been very gratifying to see the continuous evolution of the hospitality trade in Northern Ireland in recent years and a real pleasure to be able to acknowledge and reward that progress at these awards.”
A new category for this year’s event was the LCN Community Bar of the Year award, which was claimed by The Scenic Inn at Armoy in County Antrim. Sponsored by Q Radio, this category is the only one which involved an element of public voting and 4000 people visited a dedicated webpage in the run-up to the awards to cast their vote for one of eight community bar finalists.
Each of the finalists’ venues was then visited by the Q Radio outside broadcast team and locals had their chance to say on air why they believed their favourite bar should win the title.
Special musical guests for the 2017 LCN Awards were the London-based, all-female band, High on Heels, who helped guests celebrate on the dancefloor into the wee small hours. Also on the bill was local duo, Disco Beard.
Our photo above shows John and Sally with his award at the Europa on June 2.
See the LCN Awards section of this website for a full run-down of the winners and finalists and all the photos.
