Behind The Scenes

Galileo-Express Travel & Tourism Awards 2004

Travel, as we know it today has come a long way from the days of Columbus (our award statuette) and has metamorphosed into a colossal industry worldwide. Pegged as potentially largest economic driver of the future, the travel industry in India is poised for exciting times ahead. Navigating through the fast expanding horizons of the travel trade, Express Travel & Tourism - India's Travel Business Magazine - from the Indian Express Group has constantly endeavoured to break traditional ground and chart areas hitherto unexplored in the Indian travel industry. In lieu with this philosophy,

Express Travel & Tourism embarked upon an epic journey to promote professionalism and facilitate the benchmarking of higher levels of performance or standards within the industry. Express Travel & Tourism along with industry partner Galileo launched the first-ever Galileo-Express Travel & Tourism Awards for the Indian travel trade in 2003. These awards were instated to recognise and reward excellence in the Indian travel and tourism industry, which would prove as a catalyst towards achieving truly international levels of competence.

Gearing Up

Given that last year's inaugural award ceremony was a tremendous success, the second edition of the Galileo-Express Travel & Tourism Awards established the fact that these awards in truth identified excellence in the Indian travel fraternity. Going back to the basics, the process in the second year was no different from the first except for changes in the categories and evaluation process. The start of the award journey called for an extensive and detailed preparation. The Express Travel & Tourism editorial and marketing team got together immediately after the first awards, brain storming to get things shipshape for the long arduous journey to the second awards night. With the motif for the awards in place, work began on a war footing. The next step was to work upon existing categories of awards, adding a few more if necessary and checking out the process of judging, which is transparent and non-biased. In order to authenticate the awards and ensure non-biased judging, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (DTT) India Pvt Ltd were once again taken upon as they are consultants of international repute and market credibility as research partners. Playing a key role, Deloitte not only provided transparency to the judging process by supervising the overall data collation and evaluation but also assured confidentiality of information supplied by the nominees. The framework for the second edition of the Galileo-Express Travel & Tourism Awards, was carefully thought-out and put together by an expert panel within the industry and our publication's distinguished Editorial Advisory Board (Ankur Bhatia, Vijay Chadda, Saroj Datta, Ashok Fenn, Subhash Goyal, Cyrus Guzder, Zubin Karkaria, Ashwini Kakkar, Khursheed Lam, Seema Luthra, Tej Sahni, Alok Sawhney, Prem Subramaniam), after taking into consideration the feedback and suggestions from the industry post the first edition of these awards held last year. In keeping with this, the process and categories have been fine-tuned. The categories are derived based on the verticals of the pyramid of the industry.

The Categories

• Best Inbound Tour Operator
• Best Outbound Tour Operator
• Best Business Travel Operator
• Best Domestic Tour Operator
• Best Domestic Airline
• Best International Airline West -Bound from India
• Best International Airline East -Bound from India
• Best State Tourism Board
• Best International Tourism Board
• Best Premier Hotel Brand
• Best First-Class Hotel Brand
• Best Franchise Hotel Brand
• Best Visual Advertising Campaign
• Best Technology Practices
• Editor's Choice Award

After categorising all the awards, the only segment omitted what the travel agent segment. This segment was not earmarked as a category for the awards primarily because their business module is dependent on the volume of tickets issued, which in this case, clearly boils down to a handful of consolidators.

The Process

Taking off in the same style as the first edition of the awards, the second edition too had nomination forms that were based on a healthy mix of objective facts and relevant information derived from the operations of the participating companies. A selective polling process was conducted within the industry on various qualitative and subjective criteria to backup the data collected via these nomination forms. The Advisory Board of Express Travel & Tourism formulated the nomination forms. A qualifying period of April 1, 2003 to March 31, 2004 was stipulated for information, facts, and figures required for validating the nomination forms. This entire polling process was personally executed by the Express Travel & Tourism team based in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai and Kochi.

A total of approximately 500 forms were collectively duly completed and handed over to Deloitte, who then conducted an evaluation and analysis of the data.

The Evaluation

Under the objective criteria, nomination forms were received from entities who desired to participate in the appropriate category (ies). There were considered under the following factors:

• The duly filled objective form solely on the information provided
• A CA certificate / annual report
• Where information has not been provided or where incomplete information has been provided, these inputs have not been considered
• Technology Practices decided by an independent jury of key Deloitte members

Under the subjective criteria, polling forms were sent to a group of all IATA agents all across India. Where the objective criteria was applied, the following factors were considered:

• Revenues earned in the particular line of business
• Operational efficiency as demonstrated by parameters like the profitability and standard industry ratios.
• The reach of the service in terms of destinations/number of clients serviced
• The infrastructure to service the Indian market

The subjective criteria considered the following factors:

• Service levels as perceived by the trade.
• Demonstrated ability to successfully market and promote the services offered.
• Demonstrated ability to innovatively increase market share.
• Demonstrated ability to retain market share.

With all the categories well in place and the process underway, a sustained advertising campaign was launched over a period of three months to create a buzz and build up for the mega awards night. In addition, a telemarketing exercise and multi-media campaign was also undertaken to create general interest and awareness for the awards.

The Grand Finale

After all the hard work and rigors of the journey, the grand finale was an unforgettable event. The entire awards night was designed and conceptualised by Hoshi Vasunia and Troupe, a leading event management company in Mumbai. As promised, the evening had the who's who of the travel fraternity in attendance. Renuka Chowdhury, union minister for tourism and culture, government of India was the chief guest for the function along with minister for civil aviation, Praful Patel, who was the Guest of Honour. The awards night promised to be an 'affair to remember' and it certainly was definitely worth the wait!