India Insight Tours’ Vishwas Makhija has been elected to lead Adventure Tour Operators Association of India (ATOAI) as the associations new President for the 2021-23 term. Makhija has taken the reign from Shikhar Travels’ Capt. Swadesh Kumar, one of the association’s architect and a veteran figure in India’s adventure tourism landscape.
Makhija along with other office-bearers and Executive Committee (EC) team for 2021-23 term were elected at ATOAI’s AGM and Elections held a few days ago. Banjara Camps’ Rajesh Ojha has been elected as his deputy and will delegate his duty as ATOAI’s Vice President. Other office bearers include Snowlion Expeditions’ Vinayak Koul as the Honorary Secretary and Muddy Boots Vacations’ Pradeep Murthy as the Honorary Treasurer. The new team has come unopposed.
While expressing his views on his election as the President of ATOAI, Makhija said this is such a great honour, taking over as the President of Adventure Tour Operators Association of India, the National body for Adventure Travel in India.
He further added that he is ready to serve the fraternity with a much larger responsibility with an incredible team of friends who are part of the new team as Office Bearers and Executive Committee members and seek everyone’s good wishes and blessings going forward.
Commenting on the new appointment of the new leadership, outgoing President Capt. Kumar said, “Change is a must for any organization to grow. We are very fortunate that we have Vishwas Makhija as our new leader. He is young, dynamic, committed and comes with great experiences. He has served the association and industry as the Secretary of ATOAI. We expect a lot from him. Also we have a team that is very different altogether and represents stakeholders from different places across India, including Kashmir, Kerala, Bangalore, Gujarat, Ladakh. It makes a lot of difference and will help give new direction to the association. I am there to give them full support.”
Besides, the team will also comprise of nine EC members. They are Commander Sam T Samuel of Kalypso Adventures, Ronny Singh Gulati of Youreka Campouts, Nirat Bhatt of Nidus Enterprises, Nadeem Sheikh of Sea & Sky Travel (India), Arvind Bhardwaj of Red Chilli Adventure Sports and Milind Bhide of Countryside Adventure Holidays.
Past Presidents, Snow Leopard Adventures’ Ajeet Bajaj and Holiday Moods Adventures’ Tejbir Singh Anand have been co-opted into the EC, whereas Capt.Kumar will be part of the EC as its Immediate Past President.
 team for 2021-23 term were elected at ATOAI’s AGM and Elections held a few days ago.){kind=link}