Kerala Tourism bags 3 golds at PATA meet

James Paul
21 April 2004

Rathi Vinay Jha, secretary, union ministry of tourism received
three 2004 PATA gold awards in front of the likes of Chris
Cramer, managing director, CNN International, Tony Wheeler, founder of the Lonely Planet, and eight ministers from as many countries.

``This is a significant achievement for the state, more so for the
department as no state tourism department in the country has received three PATA awards in a row. The state will be represented by union tourism secretary Rathi Vinay Jha as most of us are on election duty,'' said Alkesh Kumar Sharma, director, Kerala Tourism, who was unable to attend the event, because of general elections.

The three awards have been won by the state tourism department for its Thenmala eco-tourism project, East Fort heritage project and the Ayurveda promotional CD-ROM titled `Ayurveda: the mantra of niramaya.'

While the award for East Fort heritage project is for the state government's efforts in implementing a comprehensive strategy for protecting the area around East Fort in Thiruvananthapuram by declaring it a heritage zone, the award for Thenmala eco-tourism project, the first of its kind in India, lauds the state's initiatives in promoting eco-tourism on the basis of sound principles of ecological sustainability in the surrounding areas of  Thenmala.

The last award went to the Ayurveda promotional CD-ROM titled `Ayurveda: the mantra of niramaya'. The CD-ROM, produced by Kerala Tourism in association with Invis Multimedia, is in five sections, with well-researched texts, video clips, photographs and mural paintings.

Last year too, Kerala Tourism had won the PATA gold award for the CD-ROM titled `Kerala - the green symphony', jointly produced by Kerala Tourism and Invis Multimedia.