India’s top-notch event organizer and son-of-the-soil Naveen Kundu Sunday stated that Kashmir is a tailor-made destination for holding corporate conferences and wedding tourism. He pledged to promote meetings, incentives, conferencing, exhibition or MICE tourism of Kashmir among corporate across the country.
Kundu who runs an event management company namely Leisure Corp said that Kashmir apart from being tourism destination has also facilities available to become hub of MICE tourism.
“If we assess the current infrastructure, Kashmir can host conferences having more than 3,000 participants,” Kundu said while talking to us in Srinagar.
Leisure Corp founded by Naveen Kundu in 1997 in Delhi commenced its journey with film tourism and corporate tourism, and began with offering cutting-edge solutions to producers for travel, line production and location management for films like Trimurti, Pardes, Bade MiyanChoteMiyan, Legend of Bhagat Singh and many more.
He said that Kashmir Valley has all the facilities available that could make it a successful MICE tourism destination. “You have state-of-art SKICC convention centre. Then there are facilities in ski-destination Gulmarg and Pahalgam to organize conference for around 300 participants.”
“Then there also possibilities of the organizing mega Golf events as the summer capital is equipped with Royal Spring Golf Club which is situated in the Srinagar,” Kundu said, adding that the government is also eagerly encouraging outside players to organize MICE events in Kashmir.
He said that the government has shown deep interest in promotion of MICE tourism. “That is the reason I am here,” he said, adding that the government of Jammu and Kashmir has promised the event managers discount on Gondola tickets and other facilities.
“This shows their intent about the idea of making Kashmir as MICE destination,” he said, adding that discount on tickets won’t have any impact on corporate sector but it reveals the positive intent of the JK government which is a good sign for Kashmir.
Kundu who belongs to Kashmir, said that Kashmir is in his blood. “You can keep Kashmiris out of Kashmir, but not Kashmir out of any Kashmiri,” he states.
“Being a Kashmiri Pandit I believe it as my responsibility towards the place to promote it. For me promoting Kashmir is not business,” he said, adding that many Kashmiri Pandits who are heading various companies in India and abroad could easily be roped in the idea of organizing corporate conferences in Kashmir.
Giving details about his company, he said it began with executing MICE Programs and grew into an enterprise committed to deliver hospitality, accommodation, events and entertainment. “The company transformed from Leisure Tours to Leisure Corp,” he added.
“Our purpose was to offer complete end to end management solutions from planning, conceptualization, management, creative to production, on ground operations, inclusive of travel, accommodation, logistics, customized itinerary, visa facilitation, airport transfer, sightseeing, catering, thereby covering all the aspects of MICE, travel packages & hotel bookings. In 2010, we shaped into a 1 billion mart with turnover of Rs 100 crore,” he added.
