Playing catalyst in Uttarakhand

India, a country as vast and varied in its geographic offerings offers itself as a perfect adventure destination to test a traveller’s mental and physical endurance to its extreme limit. The urge to indulge in this activity based tourism is gaining prominence worldwide, and increasingly travellers are deciding what activities they want to do and choosing their destinations accordingly. The ‘push’ (personal motivation) factor is getting stronger than the ‘pull’ (destination attraction) factor. Adventure travel or tourism, a major part of activity-based tourism globally has been segmented into extreme adventure and soft adventure activities. Seeing the interest growing among travellers for this segment, many adventure tour operators in India and abroad are offering a wide range of activities like white water river rafting, trekking and mountaineering, desert safari, skiing, hot air ballooning, paragliding, scuba diving, etc. Adventure tourism is a profitable option for these tour operators as clients are willing to live under the most basic conditions but end up paying top dollar for the tour operator’s expertise and the activity.

Mandip Singh Soin, founder and managing director, Ibex Expeditions opines, “The adventure tourism segment has been being growing at 10-15 per cent year-on-year combining both inbound and domestic travellers. The northeastern frontier is a potential state for this segment and we are looking forward to the government’s support for the same.”

Agreeing to the same, Major SK Yadav, managing director, Wanderlust Travels opines, “The segment has been growing rapidly. Apart from leisure, corporate clients are also opting for adventure activities as part of incentive travel which they use for team building exercises. In the Asian region, Nepal has been attracting a lot of adventure travellers. The segment also saw a growth of 22 per cent in 2011 and has been growing since then. India receives nearly 1.5 million inbound tourists for adventure activities.”

Uttarakhand: The adrenaline returns

Uttarakhand took the adventure route to beckon tourists back to its green vales. After almost a quarter of a century, the state brought back motorsport on its tourism calendar to boost confidence among tourists, and woo them to its tourism hotspots again.

In the second half of December 2013, the state government hosted the Uttarakhand Adventure Car Rally. About 70 rallyists from all parts of the country went across about 1,000 kms in the mountain state as part of the rally. Uttarakhand Tourism had organised this Rally to spread the message nationally and internationally that roads and infrastructure in Uttarakhand are good, and the state is once again the ‘eco-adventure tourism destination’ for skiing, white-water rafting, wildlife photography, and now also motorsport. The rally route touched some of the favourite tourism attractions in Uttarakhand. These included Shivpuri for white water rafting, the ski resort at Auli, and Garjiya on the periphery of the Jim Corbett Park.

UK Panwar, secretary tourism, Uttarakhand said, “Uttarakhand has world-class holiday destinations for families and youth alike. The roads are good again, and we invite all tourists to enjoy the unique holiday experience here.”

The Uttarakhand Adventure Car Rally brought the Himalayan state on the motorsport calendar of the country after 23 years. The internationally-popular Himalayan Rally was the last motorsport event on these winding mountain roads.

Vijay Parmar, president, Himalayan Motorsport, said, “Motorsport has great potential to grow in Uttarakhand, and will showcase its excellent tourism destinations nationally and internationally. The state has a super network of roads, and more roads are being constructed in highly picturesque locales.”