Tag Archives: Captain Swadesh Kumar

Adventure Tour Operators’ Association of India (ATOAI) is all set to organise Adventure Tour Summit from April 26-28, 2018. Captain Swadesh Kumar, President, ATOAI, reveals that they had requested the Ministry of Tourism to declare 2018 as the ‘Year of Adventure Tourism’. He claims that it took them almost three months to convince MOT, and now they will organise activities related to this every month of this year in India. “Under this, we have requested the ministry to put adventure as the theme as part of its advertisement. We are doing a mega show where we are inviting 500 tour operators, travel agents and media from across the world from April 26-28, 2018. The aim is to make India’s incoming business for adventure tourism double in three years. The celebration will start from Delhi in January when we will be doing a roadshow, where we wish to have a seminar on an industry level and talk about adventure tourism. February we will be going to Maharashtra, and we will be carried on. One important thing we will be doing is that we will be launching the guidelines for adventure tourism in this country—guidelines for sustainable tourism, good practices and safety,” he elaborated.

Adventure Tour Operators Association of India (ATOAI) has elected Captain Swadesh Kumar, Managing Director, Shikhar Travels India, as President for 2016-18. The office bearers were elected unopposed. Ajeet Bajaj, Managing Director, Snow Leopard Adventures is the new Senior Vice President; Tejbir Singh Anand, Managing Director, Holiday Moods Adventures has been elected as Vice President; Rajesh Ojha, Co-founder, Banjara Camps and Retreats is the new Secretary while the position of Honorary Secretary will be held by Vaibhav Kala, Founder, Aquaterra Adventures. “The association will shift its trajectory from Himalayan centric to a pan-India focus for adventure tourism. Since around 22 million Indian travellers go abroad to experience adventure holidays, we plan to involve international members into the association and also focus on outbound segment of travel for adventure tourism,” says Kumar. The elected Executive Committee members are Mohan Tickoo, Managing Director, Kash Venture Travels; Sanjay Basu, Managing Director, Far Horizon Tours; Vishwas Makhija, Managing Director, India Insight Tours; Shashank Gupta, Director, Rucksack Tours; Vinayak Koul, Director, Snow Lion Expeditions and Akshay Kumar, CEO, Mercury Himalayan Exploration, who is also the Immediate Past President.