AARTI convention in January

Association for Agri & Rural Tourism in India (AARTI) is organising a six-day convention in January next year with INDeco Hotels Swamimalai, to promote this up-and-coming genre of tourism.

Nisha Verma

AARTI is a conglomeration of all organisations and individuals engaged in the rural tourism space, with the sole objective of mending its broken backbone and regenerate its poor economy with what the local communities know, have and do. The founding members of AARTI are Padma Bhushan awardee SK Mishra, IAS (retd.); Sujit Banerjee, IAS (retd.); MP Bezbaruah, IAS (retd.); Jose Dominic; Prof Nimit Choudhary; Supratim Raj Basu; Pandurang Taware and Steve Borgia, CMD, INDeco Leisure Hotels.

The association is now planning a six-day convention in January 2021, with INDeco Hotels Swamimalai, and Borgia is the Coordinator of the convention. He shares, “AARTI proposes to organise a global convention in January 2021 at Kumbakonam, Tanjore district in southern India. The association has also sought support of UNWTO and Ministry of Tourism. May this initiative help AARTI to take rural tourism to pockets that have the potential to create tourism destinations for the world to experience, and regenerate villages, their culture, life, lifestyle and heritage.”

Borgia adds that the convention will take attendees beyond lectures and speeches. “The core of this convention is the seminar on innovative, responsible, regenerative and sustainable tourism for rural development. This will be supported by related workshops, site visits, demonstrations and creation of rural tourism products aimed at propagating tourism for rural development. Numerous related events have been planned as a part of this
convention to help identify and build rural entrepreneurship,” he says.