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Kerala bags best tourism state award
New Delhi: Popularly known as 'God's own country', Kerala has once again bagged Best Performing Tourism State Award for Outstanding achievements in the area of Tourism. It has also won Best Maintained Tourism Friendly Monuments Award for Sakthan Thampuran Palace, Kochi and a Special Award for the books "Ayurveda - The Mantra of Nirmaya" and "Kerala Tourism Handbook". Besides, Coconut Lagoon in Kerala's Kumarakom bagged an award for best eco-friendly resort. Konaseema Tourism Project of Andhra Pradesh has been declared Best Tourism Project in the country while Assam Bengal Navigation Project begged the award for Most Innovative Tourism Project. Beach Protection Council of Orissa was declared the best NGO working for the promotion of Tourism. In the category of hotels, Oberoi Amarvilla, Agra and Taj Residency, Bangalore were declared the best hotels while The Marriot, Delhi got the prize for best Eco-Friendly Hotel and Coconut Lagoon, Kumarakom - Kerala won the best Eco-Friendly Resort.
Presenting the National Tourism Awards for outstanding performance for the year 2004-05 in various sectors of tourism and travel, at the glittering function here today, Minister for Tourism and Culture Ambika Soni said that the Government had recently taken a number of initiatives to ensure active participation of private sector in tourism promotion which include scheme for infrastructure creation also. She said that the Government is committed to provide all possible support to the travel and tourism industry as tourism is a high priority item on the agenda of the Government. Soni also awarded 24 students for the contest 'What tourism Means to Me' organized by the Ministry on the World Tourism Day. On the occasion launching Incredible India Visa Great Breaks programme in collaboration with Visa International to promote India as preferred travel destination, Soni said that the programme is an excellent example of private sectors partnership for the promotion of tourism. Briefing about the highlights of the programme, Country Manager South Asia, Visa International Asia Pacific, Santanu Mukherjee said that the programme had an immediate audience of over 277 million visa cardholders in the Asia Pacific region and 1.3 billion cardholders across the world. The programme would provide tourists with direct access to merchants thereby helping them to plan their visit more effectively. Ambika Soni also released TV commercials prepared by the Ministry on North East, Jammu and Kashmir, Buddhist Circuit and Andaman and Nicobar.
The
World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) has listed Kerala among the best
three destinations in the world. The destinations have been selected for
the 'Tourism for Tomorrow Awards 2006', which will be presented at the
sixth global Travel and Tourism Summit in Washington DC on April 11. The
three finalists have been selected by an international committee of experts
from over 100 applications from more than 35 countries representing the
full spectrum of Travel and Tourism enterprises, large, medium and small.
-Mar 17, 2006
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