A southwest business has been presented with a prestigious provincial award.

During Wednesday night's Saskatchewan Tourism Awards of Excellence Gala in Saskatoon, Maple Creek's Cowtown Kids Toy & Candy was named the 2016 Rookie of the Year.

"It's an amazing honour to receive this award," Bob Siemens the Owner of
Cowtown Kids Toy & Candy said. "It's just so nice to be recognized in the tourism industry as we create a very unique experience and provide it for the tourists."

This year's Rookie of the Year Award finalists, sponsored by the Saskatchewan Roughrider Football Club, featured three southwest Saskatchewan businesses vying for the prize. Finalists for 2016 included; The Grotto Gardens Country Market in Maple Creek, Cafe Terra in Eastend and Cowtown Kids Toy & Candy in Maple Creek competing for award.

"It's painful (to take this award away from them) because I know both of the other nominees and I know they do amazing work in their own respective field," Siemens told Swift Current Online. "It was kind of a bitter sweet experience in Saskatoon because it's different when you know everybody (you're competition against).

"We all knew going in that no matter who won, it was a great opportunity to bring attention to the southwest and encourage tourists to come down to the southwest and check it out."

Since opening in the spring of 2015, the Maple Creek business has now won two awards, one locally as Business of the Year for 2015 in Maple Creek and most recently the Rookie of the Year Award from Tourism Saskatchewan.

The largest independant toy store in Saskatchewan is hoping the exposure from the award and gala will translate into higher volumes of instore traffic.

"Our goal is to get people to come to the area, pull off the highway and come check it out (the store). The best way for that to happen is word of mouth," Siemens added. "The award is a great way to get our name out their."

The 28th annual Saskatchewan Tourism Awards of Excellence Gala featured two award winners and eight finalists from the southwest area competing for the 11 tourism awards.