Awards Round-Up

ITC Welcomgroup, Trident Hilton dominate the Galileo-Express TravelWorld Awards 2006

PRS Oberoi is bestowed with the Lifetime Achievement Award

Reema Sisodia - New Delhi

For the second time in a row, WelcomHeritage and Trident Hilton bagged the honours at the Galileo Express TravelWorld Awards 2006 held recently in New Delhi. ITC WelcomGroup Hotels took the award for the Best Premier Hotel brand for the first time, having closely missed it in the previous editions of the awards. It was a double whammy for the hospitality major, as its Heritage brand, WelcomHeritage won the Best Heritage Hotel Brand Award for the second year in a row. Quality Inn (Choice Hospitality) was adjudged the Best Franchise Hotel Brand, while Trident Hilton won the Best First Class Hotel Brand Award for the second year running. With a standing ovation, the august gathering honoured PRS Oberoi, chairman of the Oberoi Group, recipient of The TATA AIG Lifetime Achievement Award for his outstanding contribution to the hospitality industry.

Ambika Soni, Union Minister for Tourism & Culture, speaking at the awards	PRS Oberoi, Chairman EIH (Oberoi Group) receives the TATA AIG Lifetime Achievement Award from Michael Carlin, COO, TATA AIG General Insurance

Best Premier Hotel Brand	Best Franchise Hotel Company
Sarabjit Dhawan, Vice President, ITC-Welcomgroup, receives the award from Ashwin Damera, CEO and Co-Founder, Travelguru	Vilas Pawar, CEO,Choice Hotels India, receives the award from Subodh Kant Sahai, Minister of State for Food Processing Industries
Best First-Class Hotel Brand	Best Heritage Hotel Brand
Vikram Oberoi, Deputy MD, The Oberoi Group, receives the award from Ashwin Damera, CEO and Co-Founder, Travelguru	Rakesh Mathur, President, WelcomHeritage, receives the award from Ashwin Damera, CEO and Co-Founder, Travelguru

This year 257 entries were received across all award categories as compared to 106 entries last year. The venue this year - Nandiya Garden at ITC Maurya Sheraton (which was also the venue when the awards were established in the year 2002) - played host to nearly 500 guests comprising who's who of the Indian aviation, hospitality, travel and tourism fraternity, including Dr Vijay Mallya (chairman of Kingfisher Airlines), Peter Kerkar (managing director of Cox & Kings), Vithal Kamat (CMD of Orchid Ecotel Hotel), V Thulasidas (CMD of Air India) to name a few.

Minister for Tourism and Culture, Ambika Soni, was the chief guest at the occasion while Minister of State for Food Processing Industries, Subodh Kant Sahai and Minister of State for Agriculture, Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, Dr Akhilesh Prasad Singh were the guests of honour. Speaking at the occasion, Soni said, "I would like to congratulate Express TravelWorld and Galileo for conducting an award for this growing industry. Hospitality and tourism were never considered as priority sectors; it was the government that ran hotels. But the situation changed in the last few years with greater emphasis on the public-private partnership (PPP) model. Today, the need of the hour is for budget hotels and we are keenly looking at hotels built by the railways ministry. Land banks have been created by state governments and tax incentives have been given by the Finance Ministry and several other measures have been initiated, which ensure us that the 1,50,000-room deficit will be bridged by 2010.

"Connectivity and infrastructure development is extremely vital for the success of tourism. I had suggested to the railways ministry to introduce four to six more trains specifically for tourism. The Civil Aviation Ministry is upgrading facilities at certain places. All this is not fast enough but good enough. India won Best Innovative World Product for rural tourism at the WTM 2006. I am happy that you have increased the number of awards. We need this kind of an acknowledgement by the industry to honour the people who have made a difference within this sector."

The awards put together by Express TravelWorld - India's foremost travel business magazine from the Indian Express Group - and its industry partner, Galileo India has only grown both in size and stature since its inception. These awards also compliment the tourism scenario as the Indian travel and tourism industry is changing and never before has there been a stronger case for benchmarking and raising the standards of quality in product offerings and levels of service.

Sharing his views at the awards ceremony was Shekhar Gupta, editor-in-chief of Indian Express Group, who said, "Tourism in India is looking up; hotels are full and airlines are doing very well. New benchmarks are being set in the industry and one is witnessing many innovations. Even the ministry of tourism is doing so with a great ad campaign. This is a time when several things are falling in place. Winning awards in a year that has witnessed intense competition is a tough task and the credit goes to all those who have bagged the honours tonight. The gap between the nominees and the winners has been quite thin this time but the overall winner has been the industry collectively."

He further added that his conversation with PRS Oberoi at the event deliberated on the fact that it has been a bad year in term of lack of hotel room availability amidst an increasing number of tourists. Gupta added, "Hopefully we will be ready when the next boom comes. The Indian Railways are doing a great job. Tourism is not just about airlines. New highways and infrastructure development in civil aviation is exciting and sky is the limit for tourism in India."

There were 20 awards in total that were announced this year as compared to 17 last year. Among them were four Jury Awards and two Special Awards, which included the Editor's Choice Award (given to a brand rather than an individual for the first time) and the Lifetime Achievement Award. While the first one was bagged by Kingfisher Airlines, the latter was conferred on PRS Oberoi, chairman of Oberoi Group.

The framework for this fourth edition of the Galileo-Express TravelWorld Awards, was carefully thought out and put together by an expert panel within the industry and our publication's distinguished Editorial Advisory Board, after taking into consideration the feedback and suggestions from the industry post the last three editions of these awards. Accordingly, the process was streamlined further to ensure even healthier competition. These awards would not be possible if it wasn't for Galileo, Travel Guru, Tata AIG Insurance (who sponsored the Lifetime Achievement Award) and research partners to this award, Deloitte.