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Friday, March 29, 2024

PHOTOS: Hospitality ‘Olympics’ pits restaurants, hotels in friendly competition

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While some withered and sank in the waters of Banks Channel on Sunday, others managed to keep their cardboard crafts afloat as their teammates cheered them it. It wasn’t a traditional boat race, but the cardboard yacht race that ended Sunday’s “hospitality Olympics” in Wrightsville Beach was the fitting cap to a new event organizers said was created to improve camaraderie across Wilmington’s tourism industry.

It certainly wasn’t about the competition at the event organized by the Wilmington Area Hospitality Association, participants said.

“We may not have won the most events, but we sure do have the best team spirit,” said Wrightsville Beach Holiday Inn team member Alison Baxter, draped in a blue boa, in between events at the Wilmington Area Hospitality Association.

Once the award ceremony was held, Baxter turned out to be correct. The Holiday Inn team did indeed take the medal for best team spirit, earned partly with their coordinated blue outfits and accessories.

The team from Carolina Beach Resort won the competition, while another Wrightsville Beach area restaurant, Port Lane Grille, took second place in the awards and the combined team of the Waterline Brewery and Fairfield Inn Suites took third.

In organizing the event, the Wilmington Area Hospitality Association was reviving competitions that haven’t been held in more than seven years. But Michelle Hardee, vice president of the association’s board, said it was time to bring some variety to the other networking events the group sponsors.

The teams competed in a variety of events, which concluded with a haphazard “yacht” raise where members of the each team tried to paddle a cardboard kayak across to the Blockade Runner’s dock, before turning back again. A few boats made it. A few others disintegrated.

“It got harder to paddle but it stayed together,” said Katie Bradley, ‘captain’ of the Wrightsville Beach Holiday Inn boat, appropriately named ‘No Worries’. “I can’t believe it made it.”

Other events including a race to set up tables and settings, a fish toss, a tug of war, a Bellman’s cart race, a toilet paper toss and a “minefield,” where teammates had to give clues to a blindfolded player about their whereabouts.

“It was such a great day, it was so much fun,” said Hardee, sales director at Staybridge Suites. “We have an amazing group here working in the tourism industry and it was great to get together and celebrate their service. We’re all trying to help each other here and make sure tourism comes to our area.”

The event wasn’t just for fun, it also raised $3,260 for the Cape Fear Community College hospitality program known as the Pineapple Guild.

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