DELRAY BEACH – The Delray Beach International Tennis Championships will be awarded the Palm Beach County Convention and Visitors Bureau’s prestigious annual Providencia Award, according to Jorge Pesquera, president and CEO of the Palm Beach County CVB.
The award will be presented Sept. 30 at the bureau’s annual Marketing & Sales Plan Presentation to be will be held at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in downtown West Palm Beach.
“The Providencia Award is Palm Beach County’s most important symbol of recognition for the local tourism industry, which employs tens of thousands of county residents and adds more than $2.6 billion annually to the local economy,” said Pesquera. “The annual award celebrates local businesses, organizations and/or individuals who have made an extraordinary contribution to the vitality and prosperity of Palm Beach County as a desirable tourist destination.”
“The CVB’s 20-member Public Relations Committee evaluated and scored eight different nominations before selecting the Delray Beach International Tennis Championships as the winner of this year’s Providencia Award,” said committee chair Gary Schweikhart, president of PR-BS, Inc., a Boca-based public relations firm.
Previous Providencia Award winners include The Colony Hotel in Palm Beach, The Morikami Museum & Japanese Gardens, The Breakers, Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, Burt Reynolds, The Ritz-Carlton, Norton Museum of Art, Boca Raton Resort & Club, Moroso Motor Sports, SunFest, Jack Nicklaus, Marathon of the Palm Beaches, Delta Airlines, Alexander W. Dreyfoos, Jr., and the Palm Beach Kennel Club.
The other seven nominees for this year’s Providencia Award were the Boca Raton Museum of Art, CityPlace, David Feder, International Polo Club Palm Beach, Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse & Museum, Nancy Marshall and the Palm Beach International Boat Show.
The Delray Beach International Tennis Championships (ITC) is the only ATP tournament in the world featuring an ATP Champions Tour event and an ATP World Tour event in the same week. Scheduled for February 18-27, 2011 at the Delray Beach Stadium & Tennis Center, the ITC annually attracts the best tennis players in the world and thousands of visitors to Delray Beach and Palm Beach County.
The ATP event is entering its 19th year (13th in Delray Beach), while the ATP Champions Tour event is returning for its second year in 2011. Celebrated in 2003 with the ATP Award of Excellence, the privately owned tournament features one of 11 ATP World Tour Events in the United States and the first-ever ATP Champions Tour event played on US soil. Total player compensation is $1.3 million for both events.
In July, specifically because of the annual International Tennis Championships, Delray Beach was selected as one of the top 10 “Best Tennis Towns” in America by the United States Tennis Association.
The annual event attracts nearly 60,000 attendees with more than 25 percent coming from outside of South Florida. Recent Delray Beach ITC events have featured iconic stars such as John McEnroe, Patrick Rafter, Mats Wilander and Pat Cash, while also attracting some of today’s top-ranked players including James Blake, Lleyton Hewitt, Marcos Baghdatis, the Bryan Brothers, Andy Roddick, Andre Agassi, Tommy Haas and Mardy Fish, among others.