Travel journalist Ircania Vazquez has been awarded the Grand Tourism Journalism Award 2012 for 17 investigative reports published in Listin Diario. The awards ceremony is organized by Occidental Hotels & Resorts and the Dominican Tourism Press Association (Adompretur) with the sponsorship of the Ministry of Tourism and the participation of the Juan Luis Guerra Foundation. This year 57 journalists competed for the awards.
Other winners were Higinia de la Cruz (Noemi) and Miguel Gomez of CDN in TV, Roddy Perez in TV documentary and Murgul Shayakmetova for the documentary Heroes anonimos on the Internet.
In online tourism, Adolfo Lopez was commended for his Ecoviajes contributions on accessdr.com and for 10 features.
The photography category was won by journalist Juan Sangiovani, with Atardecer en Salinas published in El Nacional. Alex Jimenez won the award for his photographs in Primicias.
Anny Mariel Gomez was recognized as the most outstanding journalist in Puerto Plata. Others receiving special mentions were Pascual Nunez for his photographs of sunsets on the Malecon published in El Nacional, Yamira Taveras of Hoy and Martin Polanco of El Caribe.
The jury also honored Sabrina Brugal for her 23 years transmitting Sabrina en Fin de Semana that presents tourism industry attractions and offers, mainly in the Dominican Republic.
CCN received a special recognition from the jury for the documentary, La Vega, from the Pride of My Land (Orgullo de mi tierra) series.