Winners of the 2017 Whitsundays Tourism awards, held last month at Hamilton Island, have rejected the prize and threatened to quit the organisation because it was sponsored by the mining giant Adani.
Lindsay Simpson, who won the tour and transport operators’ prize, said in a letter formally rejecting the award: “We cannot, in all fairness, accept an award sponsored by Adani, a company whose modus operandi is completely counter-productive to all that we stand for as tourism operators on the Great Barrier Reef.”
Other Whitsundays reef tour operators said they were outraged that Adani was a sponsor.
Tourism Whitsundays has subsequently ruled out future involvement with Adani.
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