Scaling New Heights

Anindita Chattopadhyay - New Delhi

“Through the Galileo-Express Travel & Tourism Awards, The Indian Express Group is doing its part to encourage the Indian travel and tourism industry to set new benchmarks, and usher heightened levels of professionalism, to truly make India an incredible destination," said Renuka Chowdhury, minister of state for tourism while describing the Galileo-Express Travel and Tourism Awards 2004. The Indian Express Group and Galileo India that instituted the awards function to honour excellence in the travel and tourism industry had all the right ingredients in place to make the second edition an outstanding success. The Taj Palace Hotel, New Delhi, was this year's chosen venue that witnessed a star-studded evening with a guest list that consisted of the who's who from the travel trade.

The Indian Express editor-in-chief and group CEO, Shekhar Gupta, made a welcome address saying, "The civil aviation and tourism sectors are vastly unexplored areas in the country because they are still under government domain. However, things are changing and efforts are being made in the right direction to promote India as a tourist destination."

Everything worked with clock work precision and the timing could not have been better, as the industry is buoyant with tourist arrivals on an upward surge. Both Renuka Chowdhury and Praful Patel - ministers of state for tourism and civil aviation were present at the occasion and stayed to present the winners with a gleaming bronzed Columbus.

VJ Rageshwari Lumba's performance was an added a fillip that lit up the evening. Although the venue was seething with activity, the highlight of the evening was inarguably the speeches, where both ministers vied for the limelight with their crisp perspectives, which held the audience in rapt attention.

Speaking at the occasion Chowdhury averred, "India represents a large network of intelligence that contributes significantly to the economies of developed countries around the world. In the wake of this information promoting the country as a tourism destination needs to be given utmost priority. She also stressed on intelligent packaging of India, the conservation of heritage monuments and fragile eco-system through public-private partnership and extensive promotion of domestic tourism. "Packaging India as a tourist destination is a complex issue. Let alone international tourists who are familiar with destinations like Goa or Kerala, even domestic travellers are not aware of destinations in South India or the North East," she explained.

Admitting that very little has been done to make things happen, Patel said, "One key reason why tourism has not progressed in India is because of a serious lack of infrastructure, which is the single biggest challenge. We have decided to upgrade the airport infrastructure all over the country. As a policy decision, the work will start rolling from 2005. We are inviting international experts, and adopting global design concepts so as to have airports that are on par with international standards. We also intend to continue with the open sky policy."

Each time 'the award goes to', was announced the frenzied crowd waited in silent suspense and moments later the venue resounded with loud applause and cheers.

It was celebration time for Emirates (Best West-Bound Airline from India), Singapore Airlines (Best East-Bound Airline from India) and Jet Airways (Best Domestic Airline) because the three airlines won the awards in their respective categories for the second year in succession. Although there was just one more contender besides Jet for the Best Domestic Airline category, Emirates left behind the likes of British Airways and Lufthansa, while Singapore Airlines won over Malaysia Airlines, China Airlines and others. The Kuoni group made a clean sweep of the awards in the tour operators segment. While Sita Inbound won the award for the ‘Best Inbound Tour Operator’ for the second year in a row, BTI Sita bagged the ‘Best Business Travel Operator’ and SOTC the ‘Best Outbound Tour Operator’ and Cox & Kings won the ‘Best Domestic Tour Operator’ award.

The Oberoi Group bagged the ‘Best Premier Hotel Brand’ award defeating strong contenders like the ITC Welcomgroup, The Leela, Le Meridien, The Grand and The Park. However, ITC's Fortune Park brand won in the ‘Best First-Class Hotel Brand’ category, while Radisson was declared the ‘Best Franchise Brand’. Uttaranchal (Best State Tourism Board), Malaysia (Best International Tourism Board), Rajasthan (Best Visual Advertising Campaign) and Tamil Nadu (Best Technology) were among the other winners. Galileo, a forerunner in providing distribution networks in India, got associated with the award because Rahul Bhatia, managing director, InterGlobe opines, "We at Galileo feel we have a responsibility in setting standards that the industry should aspire for."

All in all the awards made for a memorable evening with awards that appreciated the efforts of various organisations as well as offered the travel fraternity a unique opportunity to mingle at a premium venue surrounded by good food, plenty of entertainment and the esteemed company of the
crème de la crème of the trade.