Kerala Tourism was on Wednesday conferred the national Web Ratna Award for 2014 for exemplary e-governance initiative through the internet.
The Kerala Tourism website (www.keralatourism.org) won the Golden Icon award in the 'Outstanding Content' category of the Web Ratna Awards, instituted by the Union government under the ambit of the National Portal of India.
Kerala Tourism Secretary G Kamala Vardhana Rao received the award from Union Minister of Communications and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad.
The award ceremony was held at the India Habitat Centre in the national capital.
The Kerala Tourism website, designed and maintained by Invis Multimedia, is among the top tourism portals in the world.
The Kerala Tourism website has won several national and international awards, including five National Awards and the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Gold award, for its innovative use of information technology to promote tourism across the world.
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The Web Ratna Awards honour exemplary e-governance initiatives using the medium of World Wide Web. The winners were chosen by a jury comprising of experts from academia, industry and government.
"The Web Ratna Award is a recognition of our continuing efforts to make innovative use of modern technology to remain among the most favoured destinations in the world," said Kerala Tourism Minister A P Anil Kumar.
Launched in 1998, the Kerala Tourism website today receives around 4.2 million visits and 14 million page views annually.
Rich with text and photographs of high quality, the website is currently available in eleven international languages English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Arabic and Chinese, besides ten Indian languages including Hindi and Malayalam.
"As a pioneer in using information technology, Kerala Tourism reaches people around the world through our informative and imaginative website and its interesting content on the state and its destinations," said Kerala Tourism Secretary G Kamala Vardhana Rao.
"Our website is a significant tool for continuing interactions with our guests and potential visitors in the future," said Kerala Tourism Director P I Sheik Pareeth.
