Naples area hospitality MVPs cheered at Paradise Coast Tourism Star Awards on Marco Island

A man who risked his life to save animals from a wildfire – including a rhino named Walter – has captured top honors at the 15th annual Paradise Coast Tourism Star Awards.

Donovan Smith, founder of the NGALA preserve in Golden Gate Estates, was named both Humanitarian Star and 2017 Tourism Superstar.

More than 225 tourism industry leaders and employees attended the luncheon and awards ceremony held Tuesday at JW Marriott Marco Island Beach Resort to cheer Smith and other MVPs of tourism and hospitality in the Naples, Marco Island, Everglades region.

NGALA (prounced n-yah-lah) is Swahili for "place of the lion." It’s a sanctuary for exotic animals that have either been born in captivity or rescued and cannot be released back into the wild.

Over 18 years, this wildlife preserve also has become a key special-event location for corporations and associations holding meetings in Collier County.

A man who risked his life to save animals from a wildfire – including a rhino named Walter – has captured top honors at the 15th annual Paradise Coast Tourism Star Awards.

Donovan Smith, founder of the NGALA preserve in Golden Gate Estates, was named both Humanitarian Star and 2017 Tourism Superstar.

More than 225 tourism industry leaders and employees attended the luncheon and awards ceremony held Tuesday at JW Marriott Marco Island Beach Resort to cheer Smith and other MVPs of tourism and hospitality in the Naples, Marco Island, Everglades region.

NGALA (pronounced n-yah-lah) is Swahili for "place of the lion." It’s a sanctuary for exotic animals that have either been born in captivity or rescued and cannot be released back into the wild.

Over 18 years, this wildlife preserve also has become a key special-event location for corporations and associations holding meetings in Collier County.

Here are the other winners, selected by an independent panel of judges:

Attraction Service Star: Martha Hutcheson

Hutcheson, a museum assistant at Museum of the Everglades, is both creative and caring. She developed a museum walking tour that combines both a historical and personal perspective of Everglades City.

And, when museum visitors from Scotland suffered a medical crisis in a remote section of the Everglades, she helped comfort them and assisted in their communication with emergency services.

Hotel Service Star: Teaker Harris

Harris is loss prevention supervisor at the JW Marriott Marco Island Beach Resort.

When a guest forgot some important items and left for an early morning flight out of Miami, Harris offered to personally take the items to the guest. He made the drive in the middle of the night, returning home to take his children to school.

Innovation Star: Corey Hepburn and James Cody Wiggen

Hilton Marco Island Beach Resort & Spa Executive chef Corey Hepburn and Executive Sous Chef James Cody Wiggen are innovative team-builders.

They created “Culinary Bingo” promoting cooking skills and resort knowledge. Employees won prizes for completing all of the tasks. The duo enhanced cross-cultural camaraderie by encouraging staff members to each create a dish representing their home country, for a huge international buffet for the resort team.  With a more-engaged and creative team, scores for restaurant satisfaction soared and surpassed the Hilton Worldwide benchmarks.

PR & Communications Star: Beth Preddy

Beth Preddy, principal at Preddy Public Relations, is known for cultivating great industry-community relationships.

Her work with the Naples Originals group of locally-owned restaurants included creation of the Foodie Camp two-week cooking event, dining promotions and ongoing charitable giving.

She also serves on the Collier County Lodging & Tourism Alliance board of directors and is a member of the Wellness Tourism Task Force of the Naples, Marco Island, Everglades Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB).

Restaurant Service Star: Karin Kasap

Colleagues and guests at JW Marriott Marco Island Beach Resort say Kasap is kind and passionate about her work.

She recently cared for a meeting planner guest who has ALS, which restricts speech and motor function. Kasap's attention and discreet assistance made sure the guest could dine with the others comfortably.

Rising Star: Alexandra Dalton

Dalton showed up at Inn on Fifth as an FGCU hospitality school intern with so much enthusiasm, she announced she wanted to work in every department so she could learn every aspect of running the hotel from the inside out.

After working the reservations desk, she now works in sales, where she expertly handles inquiries from meeting planners and manages the weekly group sales meetings.

Sales Star: Steve Lawrence

Lawrence, destination sales executive for JW Marriott Marco Island Beach Resort, conducts site inspections for people who might bring meetings to the resort.

His enthusiasm and professionalism have not wavered, even when requests for tours of the new Lanai Tower doubled, and broadened to include a special island-wide tour.

Social Media Star: Kate Romary

Kate Romary of Lancit Media handles social media for Paradise Coast TV’s Visitor’s TV Network, reaching more than 4,000 in-room hotel TVs in Collier County.

She served as the engagement lead for a CVB Facebook research project to evaluate the effectiveness of using the sport of pickleball to attract visitors. She managed the campaign and optimized view engagement of the videos that reached as high as 91 percent, and she did this all during her wedding and honeymoon.

Sports Star: Mary Shea

Mary Shea of the Sports Council of Collier County has championed such initiatives as the new amateur sports complex and the addition of a CVB deputy director of sports tourism.

One of her nominators noted that thanks to Mary’s efforts, “it’s raining sports in Collier County.”

Volunteer Star: Dan Sullivan

“No” isn’t in the vocabulary of Sullivan, a volunteer at GreenLinks Golf Villas at Lely Resort.

When he noticed a lack of area information at sports events, he led efforts to bring an information tent to these activities, and served as a destination ambassador. He volunteers for Habitat for Humanity, serves on two school advisory councils, and this past year was appointed to the Tourist Development Council.

Tourism is the main economic engine in Collier County with an estimated $1.98 billion total economic impact last year. It also is the biggest employment sector with more than 37,000 jobs.

“It’s the upbeat attitude and tireless attention to detail among top performing tourism hospitality stars that keeps visitors coming back to spend more of their vacation time and dollars in Florida’s Paradise Coast,” said Jack Wert, executive director of the Naples, Marco Island, Everglades Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Note: An earlier version of this story had misspelled Karin Kasap.