Tourism News

Kerala Tourism presented PATA Gold Awards 2004

Published in Newsletter Issue No. 130 - Jun 1 2004

The Kerala Tourism has been presented this year's prestigious Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Gold Awards for its Thenmala Ecotourism project, East Fort Heritage Project and the Ayurveda CD-ROM titled 'Ayurveda ? The Mantra of Niramaya'. The awards were given away by Mr. Peter De Jong, President & CEO of PATA at the 53rd PATA Annual Conference held in Jeju Island, Korea on April 19. The awards were received by the Union Tourism Secretary, Ms. Rati Vinay Jha on behalf of Kerala Tourism.Kerala is the only state to win six PATA Gold Awards in the last three years.

Kerala is also the only state in India that has bagged three awards this year. According to the Director of Kerala Tourism, Mr. Alkesh Kumar Sharma, the congratulatory message from PATA has lauded "the exceptional achievement in a variety of endeavours, bringing acclaim to the best the region's travel industry has to offer" and "the winning projects that have set industry standards for excellence and innovation, serving as examples for others to follow."

The award for East Fort Heritage Project acclaims the efforts of the Government in implementing a comprehensive strategy for the conservation of East Fort in the city of Thiruvananthapuram by declaring it as a heritage zone. The award for the Thenmala Ecotourism project, the first planned ecotourism project in India, lauds the State's initiatives in promoting ecotourism on the basis of sound principles of ecological sustainability in the surrounding areas of Thenmala. Kerala Tourism has bagged the Gold Award for the 'Best CD-ROM' for the title "Ayurveda: The Mantra of Niramaya". The CD-ROM has been produced by Kerala Tourism in association with Invis Multimedia. Last year, Kerala Tourism had won the PATA Gold Award for the CD-ROM titled 'Kerala -The Green Symphony', which was jointly produced by Kerala Tourism and Invis Multimedia.