Suffolk-based Gough Hotels has beaten off competition from national and international chains to pick up two trophies at the 2017 Hotel Marketing Awards.

East Anglian Daily Times: Alex Paul, holding trophy, and Tom Dirscoll, third from left, of Gough Hotels, receive the Best Website and SEO Marketing award at the Hotel Marketing Awards from Ed Purnell, director of marketing for Marriot UK and chair of the Hotel Marketing Association, and Caroline Beecher, managing director/owner of consultancy company IM London. Photo: ContributedAlex Paul, holding trophy, and Tom Dirscoll, third from left, of Gough Hotels, receive the Best Website and SEO Marketing award at the Hotel Marketing Awards from Ed Purnell, director of marketing for Marriot UK and chair of the Hotel Marketing Association, and Caroline Beecher, managing director/owner of consultancy company IM London. Photo: Contributed (Image: Archant)

The company’s Salthouse Harbour Hotel in Ipswich won the Best Website and SEO Marketing award and PR and digital marketing executive Tom Driscoll scooped the Young Marketer of the Year title.

Of the Salthouse Harbour, located on the Ipswich Waterfront, the judges said it was “great to see a hotel embracing their location and the importance of selling destination”, adding that the hotel “delivered compelling content on their new website, with a great SEO structure, which subsequently produced results above all expectations.”

The judges said Tom Driscoll “has a really mature approach for a young marketing professional” and that “his understanding and implementation of the full array of marketing weaponry available to him has been commendable, as has his ability to work with a budget that is far less than many of the competitive set.”

Gough Hotels is a family-run business which has owned the Angel Hotel in Bury St Edmunds since 1973. It opened the Salthouse Harbour Hotel in Ipswich in 2003 and since 2013 has also owned Southwold Pier.

Alex Paul, sales and marketing director, said: “This is very exciting news for the hotels, and it is so important for a Suffolk business to be recognised on a national platform. It is an important endorsement of the work we have been doing to bring new visitors to the county.”

The Hotel Marketing Awards, held this year at the W Hotel in London’s Leicester Square, are run by the Hotel Marketing Association, the leading professional body for hotel marketers, and recognise the industry’s best work in the field of hotel marketing and campaigns.