YES BANK, India’s fifth largest private sector bank, has won
the ‘Most Responsible Tourism Project/Initiative’ at the National Tourism
Awards 2014-15’instituted by the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India. YES
BANK is the FIRST bank to receive the prestigious National Tourism Award, for
its unique ‘Edge of India’ initiative, which focuses on developing cooperative
tourism models to ensure livelihood security of local communities. The award was
bestowed by the Chief Guest Sumitra Mahajan, Hon’ble Speaker, Loksabha and Dr.
Mahesh Sharma, Hon’ble Minister of State (IC) for Tourism and Culture.

Rana Kapoor, Managing Director & CEO, YES BANK and
Chairman YES Institute, said, “YES BANK is honoured to be the first Bank to
receive the prestigious National Tourism Award from the Government of India,
for its unique ‘Edge of India’ initiative which is focused on developing
cooperative tourism models to ensure livelihood security of local communities.
This significant national recognition further inspires us to continue working
closely with the Government, industry, local communities and all stakeholders
in the Tourism value chain to create an enabling policy environment to fully
unlock India’s Global Potential in Tourism - an engine of economic growth and
job creation.”

The award winning ‘Edge of India’ initiative is a community
tourism initiative, run by a network of co-operative Destination Management
Organisations (cMDO), which aims to deliver sustainable socio-economic
development through capacity building of rural communities.  Under this initiative, the cDMOs offer access
to lesser-known parts of rural India through home-stays and itineraries offered
visitors/travellers/tourists an authentic community experience. Queen Margaret
University (Edinburgh), Dunira Strategy (Edinburgh) and eZone had also
partnered with YES BANK for the project.

The project has been carried out in four villages -
Bageshwar, Ranikhet and Pithoragarh Districts of Uttarakhand and Purulia in
West Bengal. The Project helps to realize the potential of heritage and set up
tourism businesses through a cooperative model to ensure that the benefits
percolate to the entire community. The communities get trained and assisted in
creating a self-sustaining tourism business model.

YES BANK, India’s only Greenfield bank, under its
differentiated ethos of Knowledge Banking and strategy of becoming the Best
Quality Bank of the World in India, has identified and promoted strategic
sunrise sectors including Tourism, Food and Agri-Business, Healthcare, Life
Sciences, Media & Entertainment among others. In the past years, YES BANK
has released key Knowledge Reports dealing with tourism promotion, including
‘Towards Sustainable Spiritualism: Buddhist Tourism – Linking Cultures,
Creating Livelihoods’ (with ASSOCHAM); ‘India: A Global Tourism Powerhouse’
(with PHDCCI) and the ‘YES BANK Haryana State Tourism MAP’ (with Govt. of
Haryana).

Last year, Kapoor, was honoured by the Pacific Area Travel
Writers Association (PATWA) for ‘Lifetime Contribution to Promotion of Indian
Tourism’ and inducted into the PATWA Hall of Fame, while YES BANK, was
conferred with the ‘PATWA International Award for ‘Best Tourism Friendly Bank’;
at the ITB Berlin (Internationale Tourismus-Börse, Berlin), which is the
world’s largest tourism trade fair. YES BANK was also honored with the ‘Best
Bank for Promoting Tourism’ Award by ASSOCHAM at the 9thInternational
Conference-cum-Awards on Civil Aviation & Tourism in June this year.