No Spring WebApplicationInitializer types detected on classpath in Ubuntu Tomcat 7 - spring

Question

I have a spring web application which runs fine when I run it via jetty using maven and deploying it in tomcat 7 in my local environment, but gives me the "No Spring WebApplicationInitializer types detected on classpath" when I try to deploy it in my prod server.
I know that the web.xml is being read because I have a sitemesh filter defined on the web.xml and everytime I hit a static .html file, the sitemesh filter is being invoked. But when I try to hit a spring configured url (defined with #RequestMapping), it displays a blank page.
My local environment setup is running in Linux mint + oracle jdk 1.7. My prod server is running in Ubuntu + oracle jdk 1.7. I have a similar app that runs just fine in prod but not this one. The apps are deployed in the same tomcat instance using different Hosts.
So, here's my web.xml file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
<web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
version="2.5"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd">
<display-name>app2</display-name>
<description>app2</description>
<!-- Enable escaping of form submission contents -->
<context-param>
<param-name>defaultHtmlEscape</param-name>
<param-value>true</param-value>
</context-param>
<context-param>
<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
<param-value>classpath*:META-INF/spring/applicationContext*.xml</param-value>
</context-param>
<filter>
<filter-name>CharacterEncodingFilter</filter-name>
<filter-class>org.springframework.web.filter.CharacterEncodingFilter</filter-class>
<init-param>
<param-name>encoding</param-name>
<param-value>UTF-8</param-value>
</init-param>
<init-param>
<param-name>forceEncoding</param-name>
<param-value>true</param-value>
</init-param>
</filter>
<filter>
<filter-name>HttpMethodFilter</filter-name>
<filter-class>org.springframework.web.filter.HiddenHttpMethodFilter</filter-class>
</filter>
<filter>
<filter-name>Spring OpenEntityManagerInViewFilter</filter-name>
<filter-class>org.springframework.orm.jpa.support.OpenEntityManagerInViewFilter</filter-class>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>CharacterEncodingFilter</filter-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>
<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>HttpMethodFilter</filter-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>
<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>Spring OpenEntityManagerInViewFilter</filter-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>
<!-- Creates the Spring Container shared by all Servlets and Filters -->
<listener>
<listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
</listener>
<!-- Handles Spring requests -->
<servlet>
<servlet-name>app2</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
<init-param>
<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
<param-value>WEB-INF/spring/webmvc-config.xml</param-value>
</init-param>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>app2</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
<filter>
<filter-name>sitemesh</filter-name>
<filter-class>com.opensymphony.sitemesh.webapp.SiteMeshFilter</filter-class>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>sitemesh</filter-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>
<session-config>
<session-timeout>10</session-timeout>
</session-config>
<error-page>
<exception-type>java.lang.Exception</exception-type>
<location>/uncaughtException</location>
</error-page>
<error-page>
<error-code>404</error-code>
<location>/resourceNotFound</location>
</error-page>
And here's the webmvc-config.xml residing under WEB-INF/spring directory:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans" xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc" xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc.xsd">
<context:component-scan base-package="app2" use-default-filters="false">
<context:include-filter expression="org.springframework.stereotype.Controller" type="annotation"/>
</context:component-scan>
<mvc:annotation-driven>
<mvc:argument-resolvers>
<bean class="org.springframework.data.web.SortHandlerMethodArgumentResolver">
</bean>
<bean class="org.springframework.data.web.PageableHandlerMethodArgumentResolver">
<constructor-arg>
<bean class="org.springframework.data.web.SortHandlerMethodArgumentResolver">
</bean>
</constructor-arg>
</bean>
</mvc:argument-resolvers>
</mvc:annotation-driven>
<mvc:resources location="/, classpath:/META-INF/web-resources/" mapping="/resources/**"/>
<mvc:default-servlet-handler/>
<mvc:view-controller path="/" view-name="index"/>
<mvc:view-controller path="/404" view-name="404"/>
<bean class="org.springframework.context.support.ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource" id="messageSource" p:basenames="WEB-INF/i18n/messages,WEB-INF/i18n/application" p:fallbackToSystemLocale="false"/>
<bean class="org.springframework.web.multipart.commons.CommonsMultipartResolver" id="multipartResolver"/>
<bean id="viewResolver"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.UrlBasedViewResolver">
<property name="viewClass"
value="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.JstlView" />
<property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/views/" />
<property name="suffix" value=".jsp" />
</bean>
</beans>
Please help. I've been banging my head on the wall for 2 days now and still don't know why it's failing.