Angels Of Tourism 2023: FPJ Felicitates 10 Individuals, Groups For Reviving Unknown Destinations

Mumbai: Ten individuals looking to make a difference to the world through their work in the tourism and travel sector were awarded as ‘Angels Of Tourism’ by the Free Press Journal in association with the Directorate Of Tourism, Maharashtra government, on Friday, 16 February.
At an event to honour groups and individuals giving back to society in various ways, these 10 ‘Angels of Tourism’ were honoured for reviving unknown destinations, making sustainable tourism attractive and for showing tourists the lesser known places and cultures within the state of Maharashtra.

The winning 10 Angels of Tourism:

Vishal Kamat, executive director, Kamat Hotels

The scion of the Kamat family, Vishal Kamat was handed a legacy to hold and nurture, India’s first eco-friendly five-star hotel property, the Orchid. Vishal also led the restoration of the Fort Jadhavgadh into a hotel, a structure built in 1710 by a Maratha general in Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj’s service. Fort Jadhavgadh’s reincarnation has kept its history intact—the general manager is still called the killedar, the swimming pool is still the kund, and the rooms are kholis.

“Our culture has always been about sustainability and no wastage,” Vishal said. “We have moved away from our ethos and that’s why the world is what it is now. Heritage and sustainability go hand in hand and this goes to our roots,” he said. 

Vaibhav Kiran Gholap, founder of Jawhar Tourism

An engineer and an MBA by training, Vaibhav Kiran Gholap, 33, worked for two years in Mumbai before returning to his native village in Jawhar, a hilly block with a large Adivasi population in Palghar district, about 135 km from Mumbai.

Business prospects in Jawhar were poor, but in 2016, Vaibhav decided to start a tourism venture as a proprietorship. Offering visitors a slice of tribal culture and tribal history, Vaibhav popularised tours to Jawhar, the ‘town of waterfalls’ with seven to eight waterfall sites including two that remain active year-long.

Priti Thale-Mhatre, designer-illustrator and founder of Shaipen Art

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, however, the lockdown led Priti Thale-Mhatre back to Alibaug, her hometown, where she worked from home. Her own backyard and the picturesque locales of the seaside getaway town beckoned, and she began to illustrate Alibaug. Without ever planning it, she had an Alibaug series, and from there an illustrated Alibaug map that became very popular when she posted them on social media.

In 2021, I quit my job and started illustrating full time. Her venture ‘Shaipen Art’, named after the Marathi word for ink, creates multiple illustrated projects around Mumbai’s favourite beachfront destination such as a book commissioned by a developer building villas in the town, paintings and illustrations commissioned by owners of old and heritage properties in Alibaug, and other resorts and hotel owners who want the localities around their properties to be mapped and illustrated. 

Sudhir Risbud, petroglyph conservationist

Over 12 years, history enthusiast and conservationist Sudhir Risbud of Ratnagiri along with two colleagues at the Nisarg Yatri Sanstha has painstakingly discovered and documented nearly 1,500 petroglyphs around Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg. In all, there are nearly 1,600 petroglyphs located at over 150 sites in 100-odd villages of these two Konkan districts. Petroglyphs are rock-carvings, one of humankind’s oldest-known art forms, and research at the Konkan sites infers that these creations belong in the period from the Upper Paleolithic to Neolithic Age.

Petroglyphs are considered powerful cultural symbols reflecting social traditions, religions, deities and the sacred landscape of a region. Risbud and his team have led an effort along with state conservationists to particularly document nine sites that are now in the running for a spot in the UNESCO World Heritage Sites listing.

Perin Irani, tourist guide

Perin Irani started her career as a tour guide in 1970, going on to travel the world as a guide and lecturer on tours curated for government dignitaries and royalty from around the world. She was also a lecturer on cruises coming into India.

Fluent in French, Italian, Japanese and Spanish, Irani guided tours for the Shah of Iran, royalty from Afghanistan, Ethiopia, for Margaret Thatcher and for several top VIP guests of JRD Tata.

In her very first year as a tour guide, Irani won a Rotary award for best guide. “It was the most fruitful career,” she said. “I travelled around the world for tours organised by SOTC and also led several outstation tours in India and Nepal, through the government of India’s tourist office.”

Shilpa Karkare & Nitin Karkare, founders of Rustic Holidays

Located 35 km off Chiplun on the Mumbai-Goa highway, Rustic Holidays is a set of mud cottages for guests alongside the 230-year-old ancestral home of Nitin and Shilpa Karkare.

Nitin gave up his career as a successful sound recordist and editor in the television industry when the couple decided to spend more time in Chiplun, slowly shifting altogether from Thane to the family home on 110 acres of land in Tural, 650 feet above sea level, surrounded  by hills, dense forests, birdsong, a variety of flora and fauna, dozens of nature trails—and a rich local history in culture and cuisine.

“We think tourism means experiencing another culture,” said Shilpa, and the Karkares resumed ancestral farming practices, cultivating local rices, kulith (horsegram), etc. Besides interesting places in the village and surrounding natural landscape, Rustic Holidays has also become a destination for weddings, thread ceremonies and other traditional rituals.

Parag Pimple, writer, editor, publisher

On motorcycle rides through Konkan in the Nineties, Parag Pimple was impressed at the variety of destinations people didn’t know about. So, long before Google Maps and with mobile phones having just arrived in India, he produced a series of six books called Saad Saagarachi (Call Of the Sea), filled with maps, route advice and local information for those wishing to visit Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg.

Using sketches and calculating distances using readings from his bike, he was the first to produce such road maps for tourists. Pimple, whose publishing house Bookmark Publications has published hundreds of other titles, also produced a coffee table book titled Divya, on Diveagar, a tiny coastal town, with the objective of promoting tourism activities there.

“My book has spots that were undiscovered until now,” he said. In 2014, he collaborated with MTDC and the collector of Sindhudurg for a coffee table book looking to pitch the district as an international tourist destination.  

Sarang Takalkar Abhishri travels

Determined to promote the Marathwada region as a destination beyond just the Ajanta and Ellora caves, Sarang Takalkar who owns Abhishri Travels has for the last three-four years prepared special itineraries for visits to Paithan, the 2,000-year-old city that was once a royal capital and part of an international trade route; the Lonar craters; and the three Jyotirlings in the region at Parli-Vaijnath, Aundha-Nagnath and Grushneshwar.

In Paithan, visitors can watch the weaving of traditional silk sarees and the Himru shawls, and closer to Ajanta they can buy the unique stone jewellery made by locals.

“Six - seven years back, when the state government planned to pitch the Marathwada freedom struggle as another aspect of the Indian freedom story, I got the opportunity to research, plan, curate, write the content and design the Hyderabad Muktisangram - Marathwadyachi Asmita museum in Aurangabad,” said Takalkar, a former journalist who has run Abhishri for over a decade.

Shrikant Umrikar, conservationist of Maharashtra’s stepwells

Shrikant Umrikar, an Aurangabad-based writer and activist, is a member of a state-appointed committee of experts to conserve Maharashtra’s stepwells. Since 2015-16, along with the Marathwada Pracheen Vastu Samvardhan Samiti, he has helped identify, mobilise local cleanliness and conservation drives and document these stepwells.

Over eight years the team has successfully transformed dozens of stepwells, called “baarav” or “pushkarni” in Marathi. “The baaravs can be sites of sustainable tourism,” said Umrikar. “We also have success in several places of local communities leading the conservation.”

In Hatnoor in Parbhani’s Selu, locals raised Rs 1 crore for repairs and conservation; other examples are in Paithan and Phulambri talukas, where maintenance is now done by locals. Among examples of rare stepwell designs, Umrikar mentions one in Sindkhed Raja (now maintained by the ASI) and one built by Ahilyabai Holkar in Verul near the Ghrushneshwar temple in Aurangabad.

Sanjay Naik and Shweta Naik, founder of Nisarga Tourism

Having organised treks across India since 1986, Nisarga Tourism was established as a company in 2000. Since 2004, it has focused on promoting destinations in Maharashtra, training local resources in villages and small towns as guides, homestay operators, etc.

Founder-director Sanjay Naik said the company offers specially curated tours for pilgrimages, culinary journeys, biodiversity tours and adventure tourism including regular rock-climbing and rappelling courses near Pune and Mumbai. The company has over 200 options for treks and hikes through jungles, around the Koyna lake, etc.  One biodiversity trek is from Bhimashankar and ends in Chandoli national park.

“Maharashtra is not just Mumbai or Lonavala, Ashtavinayak temples or Konkan’s beaches. Many places have not even been touched,” said Naik.  Along with government and industry bodies, they have trained young people to be tour guides as a source of local livelihood. “Some of those we trained are now working in the tourism sector in their villages instead of going to cities to search for work,” said Naik. During the COvid-19 pandemic, the Nisarga team conducted 30 webinars with people exploring the possibility of setting up homestays.