Mr Rupeshkumar K
CEO, Kerala Responsible Tourism Mission, Department of Tourism, Government of Kerala
Mr. Rupeshkumar; CEO, Kerala Responsible Tourism Mission. Mr. K. Rupeshkumar was selected as one of the Sustainable Tourism Leader/Champion by Conde Nast Traveller and selected as Indian Responsible Tourism Leader (Judges Choice Award - 2020) and he is the Out Standing Achievement Award (2020) Winner of WTM Responsible Tourism. He is one of founders of ICRT India along with Dr.Harold Goodwin and Manisha Pande. He was the first Indian to be selected as one of the Jury Member in the 2021 WTM Responsible Tourism Panel. He is the Trainers of Trainer for CBT Projects by ITC SME Trade Academy. He is the State Responsible Tourism Mission Coordinator, Responsible Tourism Mission, Govt. of Kerala which is one of the strongest Govt. Initiative in the sector of RT, and around 1 Lakh and 50,000 people are working as part of this Mission. Kerala bagged 15 National and International Awards for RT including UNWTO Ullysses, WTM Gold and Grand, PATA Gold and Grand etc under his leadership. He is also author of various books related with Responsible Tourism.
Rupesh Kumar has since worked as the State Responsible Tourism Project Coordinator, Destination Coordinator of Responsible Tourism, State Level Responsible Tourism Field Coordinator, Saparya Tourism Project Coordinator, Alapuzha Backwater tourism master plan Field Coordinator. Rupesh developed a new tour package model Village Life Experience as part of Kerala Responsible Tourism which converts traditional livelihood activities as Tourism products. These packages have been recognized by the Govt. of India, as the best Rural Tourism Initiative. Drawing on this experience he developed PEPPER (People's Participation for Participatory Tourism Planning and Empowerment through Responsible Tourism), The project STREET, MODEL RT VILLAGES AND all experiential Tourism Packages and Kerala Agri Tourism Network are the projects.