Tripti Pandey 'Women of the Year-2006'

Mumbai, Apr 17: Tripti Pandey was today conferred the Indian Merchant Chambers - Ladies Wing 'Women of the Year-2006' award for promoting India and Rajasthan as tourist destinations on the global map.

Accepting the award here at the IMC hall, Ms Pandey, who is also the Deputy Director of Rajasthan Tourism said,'' India is a natural habitat for tourism. It is our duty as cultural ambassadors to promote our great and diverse cultural heritage to the globe.'' She said tourism was a discovery, which can be best defined as an abstract, as it's everybody's business. ''The business of tourism begins from a roadside vendor to the people sitting as our policy makers in the capital. Everybody has a stake in it'', Ms Pandey stressed.

She pinpointed that domestic tourists prefer to travel and spend abroad, but are hesitant to do the same here. To change the trend, domestic tourists must spend alternate holidays in India she said.

Noted activist and MP, Priya Dutt Roncon, who presented the award to Ms Pandey said, '' tourism can be defined as natural sites and manmade destinations like Dubai. India has a lot of natural hot spots which should be exposed to domestic tourism''.

She said there was a fine mix of marketing and sale of Indian tourism, but the affects are seen abroad and have failed to encourage domestic tourism.

Ms Dutt stressed that efforts must be made to maintain heritage sites, sea coasts, centers of historical importance and the same should be exposed to attract tourism of all types.

UNI