VisitEngland has announced the finalists who will go forward to compete for the tourism industry’s annual National Awards for Excellence and Sunnyside Bed & Breakfast has been shortlisted as B&B and Guest House of the Year.

The VisitEngland Awards for Excellence champion the very best of the country’s tourism industry celebrating quality, innovation, best practices and exceptional customer service.

Anthony Duffey, the owner of The Sunnyside B&B, expressed his amazement at the achievement of being selected as one of the top three B&Bs / Guest Houses in the country by Visit England.

This is an incredible feeling! It took a great deal of effort to get to this point. The pandemic provided us with an opportunity to evaluate the business and, with help from Tracy Holgate and Visit Southport, we made some important changes.

We applied for the Liverpool City Region Tourism Awards and won B&B / Guest House of the Year. The judges gave us helpful feedback, enabling us to look at our business from a different perspective, and this ultimately led to essential alterations in the way we run it.

We did not rest on our laurels and chose to put these changes into effect, with overwhelmingly positive reactions from our customers. This resulted in our winning the award for 2022.

We were automatically entered for the national competition which involves winners from 16 regions. The Visit England judging panel is made up of a team of Industry professionals worked their way through the applications and have selected The Sunnyside to be in the top 3.

We've tried to look at every aspect of the business we could improve, and it feels like that effort has really paid off with this news. To reach the top 3 for the best B&B in the country is a dream come true. We are still pinching ourselves.

Carolyn Knott from the Liverpool City Region Growth Platform said:

We are delighted that Sunnyside B&B will be representing the Liverpool City Region at the VisitEngland Awards for Excellence on 7th June. They have clearly demonstrated they are a high-quality establishment with a strong focus on customer service with a desire to keep improving on all aspects of their business. They are a credit to Southport."

As far as we're aware The Sunnyside will become the first ever organisation to represent Southport in over 30 years of the Visit England's awards for excellence. Anthony said of this:

It is an absolute honour to be representing both Southport and the Liverpool City Region at this year's awards, especially with Eurovision coming to the region this year. It's a privilege to work and welcome visitors to our beautiful town.

The awards can be streamed live from 20:15 on Wednesday 8th June 2023 via this link.

Take a look at the award winning Sunnyside B&B