Pune welcomes Maya with thunderous applause
The bigwigs of the travel and tourism industry descended at Novotel Pune Nagar Road on August 5, 2016, to celebrate the excellence of the travel fraternity of the region at the third West India Travel Awards.
The glittering ceremony saw the who’s who of the travel industry from West India in presence and gracing the occasion was Pandurang Taware, Founder and Managing Director, Agri Tourism Development Corporation (ATDC) as the Guest of Honour, while Dattaram Sawant, General Manager-Finance, Goa Tourism Development Corporation (GTDC), was the Chief Guest. The black-tie event had over 100 guests who came together to celebrate excellence in tourism.
Taware is considered to be the father of ATDC and he believes that agritourism has helped Indian rural social economy to flourish and has also aided the youth to get respectable life in villages. He said, “Tourism in western India, mainly MP, Gujarat and Maharashtra, is growing. 2017 has been declared as Visit Maharashtra Year and I believe that these kinds of events will definitely help us to get more tourists.” Talking of agritourism he added, “Agritourism is a niche product and slowly it is growing. We started in Maharashtra and now it is expanding all over India. If the tourists want to get an authentic experience of the villages, they have to come to the farms. Maharashtra received more than 10 per cent international tourists for agritourism from 27 different countries.”
Sawant applauded the gathering and said, “Awards like West India Travel Awards recognise the talent at a regional level and encourage the achievers to excel further.” Speaking on how Goa enjoys a distinct place on the tourism map of India, he said, “Everyone wants to visit Goa, not only because of its beaches but also for casinos, backwater, cruises, boating sites and now hinterland tourism. Goa received over 5 lakh foreign tourists and more than 35 lakh from India last year.”
The top honours of the ceremony were received by Harmandeep Singh Anand, MD, Jagsons Travels and Founder, Global Panorama Showcase (GPS) and Rajiv Duggal, CEO, Lavasa, who were named the Face of Innovative Tourism and Best Marketing Professional of the year respectively.
SanJeet, Mentor, India Travel Awards, said, “The travel and tourism industry has many awards on a national and global level, but none on a regional platform. We believe that the real heroes of the industry come from different regions and the far corners of the country. The West India Travel Awards recognises the excellent services provided by the best establishments and honour the finest in the travel and tourism sector.” Informing about the voting process of the awards, he said that a non-biased online nomination and voting system was adopted, allowing the industry to create new categories, choose and nominate themselves and then vote. “We received 278 nominations in 65 different categories. Over 340,320 votes were received from 21 countries. The maximum votes were received from Russia, Singapore, USA, UK and the UAE,” he added.
While the winners were handed over the trophies on stage, the guests were also entertained by professional dancers who set the stage on fire and enthralled the audience.