New Delhi/Thiruvananthapuram, March 25 (IANS): 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 in Delhi. The Kerala Tourism website, designed and maintained by Invis Multimedia, is among the top tourism portals in the world.

The Web Ratna Awards honour exemplary e-governance initiatives using the medium of the world wide web. The winners were chosen by a jury comprising experts from academia, industry and government.

"This 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. Anilkumar.

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 English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Arabic and Chinese, besides ten Indian languages including Hindi and Malayalam.

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.