Bhubaneswar: Tapan Kumar Mishra from Odisha has been conferred with the Best Tourist Guide Award (2017-18) for his contribution to the tourism industry of India.
A native of Naradia village in Jagatsinghpur district, he has been working as a certified tourist guide under the Ministry of Tourism for the last 23 years. He has earned a lot of praise for being the ‘cultural ambassador’ of the country for foreign tourists.
He is first from Odisha, second from Eastern India and the youngest in the country to receive this award.
In his career as a guide, he has covered 26 states by road, 15 states twice and three Asian countries. He too has been recognised as an amateur photographer, having won awards for photography at State and National level.
Among his feat is the eight-year-long journey comprising 965 days between 2007 and 2018 with a Belgium tourist from Odisha to 26 states of the country.
Mishra received the award from Secretary General of United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) Zurab Pololikashvili Mishra during World Tourism Day 2019 celebration by the Ministry of Tourism at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi on Friday. Union Minister of State for Tourism & Culture (IC) Prahlad Singh Patel also felicitated his wife Jagruti Mishra.
