Usually when thinking of hotel staff awards, one's mind automatically leans towards the front end of the house, rather than the back or the heart of the house.

But Kellianne Smith, the hotel's human resources director, explained that there is a Committee of managers and line staff that come together to look at the Reward and Recognition.

The employee can be nominated by their peers, by their leaders or guest comments and it is all put together and the Committee nominates both the front of the house and the heart of the house.

We compile and see who gets the most votes and we have a reception once a month.

"So at the end of the year we have 24 nominations, which go towards the employee of the year and this is voted on by the executive committee, because this person will be representing Fairmont Hamilton Princess.

"Their name then gets submitted into the overall Fairmont and they can become employee of the company, so it is important that we have someone who represents excellence.

"And the committees felt that Mr. Cann showed all the attributes that we were looking for.

"He is a long time employee - he has been here for 45 years. He was nominated twice for the Visitor Industry Partnership (VIP) Awards.

"He is just a person who is very, very helpful and he works for engineering, but there are so many illustrations of where he has turned a moment into a memory, so we figured that we would have to make a memory for him."

This included having a choice to go to any Fairmont property in the world, with a guest, $500 spending money, with accommodation and food and beverage accounted for.

"So, he decided to go to Kenya," she said.

"For this year, they can pick what they want, so if they wanted to buy a Jacuzzi, they can fly in family - whatever as long as it is the value of $5,000 or go to Las Vegas and take six people with them. So it is more personalised and I think it is even better this year."