“The Caribbean Through My Eyes” Summer Photo Contest UPDATE

First, we would like to extend a huge thank you to everyone that has participated in our photo contest thus far. We’ve received a very large number of entrants, and though we were excited to announce our 4 winners soon, unfortunately for a few reasons we can not. We’d like to explain why:

• Voting: We have received a large number of complaints by entrants who feel that the voting rules were not properly explained, and we’d like to apologize for that. However our Summer Photo Contest is a social media held contest, and so we do acknowledge that while entrants have taken advantage of various social voting exchange networks available on both Facebook and elsewhere online, we did not stipulate that it was against the rules for entrants to actively participate in such. In fact, until it was brought to our attention, we were unaware that such voting exchange groups existed. We acknowledge that getting people to vote for your entry on such outlets is a powerful way to increase your chances of winning voting contests such as this one and as has happened with our Summer Photo Contest, given some entrantries a huge advantage over others who may not have otherwise been aware of such outlets. We’ve decided that it would be unfair for us to disqualify entrants for actively participating in voting exchange outlets given the fact that we did not stipulate such in our original contest rules and terms. We do find it fair that we, not only grant an extension period on our Summer Photo Contest to benefit all entrants, but also allow the participation on voting exchange outlets this one time.

Therefore, we’ll be extended both the entry and voting period of our “The Caribbean Through My Eyes” Summer Photo Contest through September 12, 2012.

How to Get Votes

• Use Your Facebook Wall

  Post a link to your contest entry on your Facebook wall, and ask all of your friends to help you. If all of your Facebook friends aren’t interested in sweepstakes, you can use Facebook Friend Lists to post your vote requests only to the friends you want to ask to vote for you.

• Use Facebook Vote Exchange GroupsSeveral Facebook groups allow people to ask for votes for their contest entries. Many times, you will be expected to return votes by helping out the contest entries of the people who voted for you. Use Google search and Facebook search to find current groups.

Future Warning: Don’t Get Disqualified When Asking for Votes

Before you start soliciting votes on Facebook and elsewhere for future contests, keep in mind that not all contests allow their entrants to participate in vote exchanges. Be sure to read the rules carefully, to ensure that you won’t be disqualified for participating in a vote exchange. Other contests may have restrictions on who you can ask to vote for you. For example, you might be allowed to ask friends to vote but not strangers, or you are allowed to post a link to the contest, but not to your specific entry.

If you are unsure, ask the sponsor for guidance about how vote requests can be made before you start and we will be sure to better explain our contest rules in the future.

Thank you once again for your time and your participation.

The Caribbean Travel & Leisure Team