00:00 I must tell you a little bit of the story about where we started this.
00:10 A few months back, almost a year back, we met up with Principal Madam Secretary and also with the Director Madam
00:19 and told them that why don't we do an Indian Responsible Tourism, Rajasthan chapter.
00:24 And the first instance they said it's a very good idea but how do we do it?
00:30 So we said no, we will look deep into the context, look deep into the evaluation, look into the process of finding
00:39 who are the responsible tourism practitioners in Rajasthan.
00:43 So we all applied our mind. We sort of tried reaching out to the lowest of the practitioners across the state
00:51 and I must share with you in this forum that we got 150 responses.
00:57 Now when I asked Shweti who is the Project Editor, I said 150, is that enough?
01:07 She said well for the first time maybe it is enough but in Rajasthan there are more than 2000 or 3000 non-practitioners.
01:15 So the job has just begun. So it's a long way to go. We will have to spread the word of what the Responsible Tourism Awards
01:25 means to the smallest of the practitioners in the state.
01:30 We have been doing the Responsible Tourism Award at the summit for the last 8 years.
01:35 It's called the Indian Responsible Tourism Awards. We started it small.
01:39 Today we get about 800 to 900 applications and only a few and a handful with new awards.
01:45 And some of them are automatically chosen by WTM and now of course we have also partnered with GSTC.
01:53 So therefore there will be a lot more recognition that they will get globally.
01:58 And we want to extend the same kind of support to the state winners as well.
02:03 Thank you.
02:04 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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