As many of you know, the city of Los Angeles uses an official
health department rating system for establishments that serve food
a C is the lowest ranking, B is in the middle and an A indicates
that a restaurant meets or exceeds all health codes. Recently, a
friend and I were talking about the system.
“If everyone eats at B and C restaurants,” he said, “what’s the
incentive for any restaurant to do the extra work to get an A?”
He has a point. If we don’t support the businesses that go the
extra mile, then pretty soon these outfits could decide it simply
isn’t worth the effort.
With that in mind, we bring you the First Annual WAVE Awards.
WAVE stands for Western Agents Vote of Excellence, and we feel this
is a great way to acknowledge those standout companies that
regularly strive to do more.
The editorial team along with the help of a small sampling of
agents did extensive research to come up with a list of over 140
companies in 31 categories that we feel are deserving of
acknowledgment. These companies received an “Editor’s Pick”
designation. Now we turn to you, our readers, to choose the best of
the best and pick the companies that deserve to take home a WAVE
award. And this is no small honor. This type of recognition goes a
long way when it comes from true experts travel agents who
understand travel better than anyone.
If this is not reason enough to vote, as an additional
incentive, we will pick three agents out of those casting votes
before April 29 to win a trip for two to Las Vegas to attend the
black-tie WAVE awards gala dinner at Mandalay Bay on June 1. The
winning agents will have the opportunity to rub elbows with top
executives from the best companies in our industry.
You will find the ballot on pages 12-13 of this issue, and you
can fax that to us at 310-954-2520. Or vote online by visiting the
home page of our Web site, TravelAgeWest.com. This is your chance
to put your expertise to use and at the same time give the “A”
companies a reason to keep up the good work.
K.S.
