Celebrating 40 years of ARDA awards

ARDA Award deadlines are just around the corner, so now is the time to recognize your company’s best people, products, and promotions and select your favorite wordsmith to craft their nominations. The deadline is Friday, February 6, 2026. The Nomination Guide and information can be found at ARDA.org/Awards-Program.

For more than four decades, ARDA has understood that the backbone of their industry has always been the professionals behind the scenes who have helped create memorable vacations. To honor the vacation ownership industry’s best people, places, communication efforts and strategies, they launched the annual ARDA Awards Program in 1985. They later introduced the ARDA Circle of Excellence (ACE) awards to celebrate excellence in other categories.

Now in its 40th year, the awards program operates like a well-oiled machine due to the dedication of Catherine Lacey RRP, ARDA’s SVP of Meetings, Member Experience & Executive Director, AIF. The awards committee is comprised of professionals representing different facets of the industry, along with scores of volunteer judges.

During the 15 years that Catherine has administered the program, she says there has been an average of 500 entries each year, attesting to the program’s popularity. The culmination of the awards program is the Awards Ceremony followed by the Awards Celebration Gala, held at the conclusion of each annual spring convention … attended by hundreds of nominees. Much like winning an Oscar has significance to an actor, winning an ARDA award has long been recognized as the most distinguished achievement for a timeshare professional. It is often a significant stepping point in obtaining new positions.

Explained Catherine, “It is important to understand that Awards Committee members do not review or select winners for the Awards. We leave that process to the non-partisan judges, experts in the category they are judging. Instead, the awards committee is part of the planning process for everything related to the ARDA Awards Nomination Guide. They review the Awards Guide to determine any need to add, delete or modify any categories according to the ever-changing landscape of our industry. Our real award has been witnessing the success of this program as our industry has grown and the recognition of our industry’s best of the best.”

Related: Grand Pacific Resorts Shines at ARDA 2025 Awards

TIPS ON WRITING AN AWARD-WINNING NARRATIVE

To provide a few tips on writing award narratives and help you walk away with an ARDA Award, we are sharing a few suggestions from veteran judges.

• Make your nomination count by adding specific examples. Include details, specific results and measurable outcomes. Entries with typographical and grammatical errors send a message that the submission was not important enough to have it reviewed by multiple people.
• Focus on specific accomplishments and not general requirements of the job.
• Instead of listing what they do, explain how and why they do it well.
• Be sure to answer the actual questions asked. Nothing else counts.
• Create a narrative that introduces your nominee to the judges and helps them appreciate your nominee’s accomplishments.
• Stick to the required page length.
• Avoid using acronyms or initials that are only familiar to people in your company.
• Try to make the person come alive on paper; a good writer can do this. Describe them in a manner that will make the judge want to meet them in person and exchange ideas. If you can’t hire a professional writer or publicist, use the best writer in your company. The quality of the writing is paramount to the success of the narrative and a huge factor in scoring high points. Thus, a professionally aided nomination of less merit may overshadow a nomination written by someone with less writing skills.

For Resort Design categories.

With so many submissions in the Resort Design Division, judges agree that brevity of the narrative is important. When the write-up and the visuals appear to tell different stories, or required elements are missing, this will harm an entry. Without both “before” and “after” images taken from the same angle in the renovation competition, it is difficult to adequately judge such an entry. Quality photography is a key element to design award winners.

For advertising and promotion categories.

Collateral materials are required for certain categories so judges can see how all the pieces worked together. Even for something as straightforward as a logo, knowing its intended use helps judges decide its effectiveness. Collateral is of utmost importance, since that’s the “deliverable” in advertising and promotional campaigns.

Marge Lennon has had a front-row seat to the growth of the timeshare industry since 1978. She loves to write ARDA awards and tell other people’s stories. Contact her at Marge@LennonCommunications.com