70 Hospitality Professionals from Across India conferred with IHE 2020 Excellence Awards

Greater Noida, December 5: Seventy hospitality professionals from across the country were honoured in a one-of-its-kind virtual awards evening webcast from the India International Hospitality Expo (IHE) 2020 platform on December 4, 2020. The proud winners of the IHE2020 Excellence Awards, from Amritsar to Kochi, from Vapi (Gujarat) to Siliguri (West Bengal), included hotel general managers, corporate heads of departments, and hotel-level HODs, who were first selected regionally to qualify for the national awards.

Mr Amarjit Ahuja, Founder and President, Purchasing Professionals Forum-India, and Director (Procurement), Le Meridien New Delhi, was inducted into the Hall of Fame for his services to the industry and his role in getting the voice of purchase managers on sourcing and pricing carry weight with their peers and seniors.

“The Awards enable us to engage intimately with the hospitality sector, which has been supporting our exhibitors and the organisers from the first edition of the IHE,” said Dr. Rakesh Kumar, Chairman, India Expo Mart Limited (IEML), the organisers of the B2B show billed as the biggest for the hospitality sector.

“This year, especially, we wanted to bring cheer and hope to an industry that has been at the receiving end of the Covid-19 pandemic. Our award-winners, in fact, qualified for the honour this year only after they were able to show that they had done something significant to make a difference to their organisation’s Covid-19 response,”Dr.  Kumar added.

Acknowledging the critical importance of the hospitality sector in the success of the show, Mr Hari Dadoo, President, IHE, and a leader of the ceramics industry, said: “We have drawn a lot support from the hospitality community. The virtual show could not have been a success without the viewership of hoteliers both across India and overseas. Nor could our knowledge sessions, which provided depth and credibility to the IHE2020 Conclave, have been possible without the participation of the industry’s thought leaders. It is important therefore for us to keep engaging with them.”

The awardees were shortlisted on the basis of the assessment by our independent jury of the replies we received to the questionnaires put up on the IHE2020 nominations microsite. The jury also checked with its contacts in the industry to make sure it hadn’t missed any deserving candidate who may have somehow not learnt about awards in time for the deadline, despite the many reminders sent out to IEML’s databases. More than 400 hospitality professionals from across the country applied for the awards.

“We are already planning for the Awards next year, which we hope will be held in the real ‘new normal’ world,” Kumar said. “In the year ahead, we will promote the Awards well in advance and introduce some new categories to attract more nominations. Our objective is to be India’s premier hospitality sector awards.”