2021- Mr. Deepak Raj Joshi
Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Nepal Chapter and the Judging Committee for its Annual Featured Awards comprising of Mr. Bibhuti Chand Thakur (Chairman- PATA Nepal Chapter), Mr. Dipendra Purush Dhakal (Former Secretary- Ministry of Tourism), Mr. Prabin Bahadur Pandey (Former Chairman- PATA Nepal Chapter), Mr. Bijay Amatya (CEO- Kora Tours) and Ms. Pamfa Dhamala (Member- PATA Nepal Chapter) endorsed Mr. Deepak Raj Joshi as the most deserving candidate for PATA Personality of the Year 2021 Award.
Mr. Deepak Raj Joshi received the prestigious “PATA Personality of the Year 2021” during the PATA Nepal Chapter featured Annual Award ceremony at the formal function of PATA ID and World Tourism Day Celebration 2022 held on 26th Septemebr at GATE, Kathmandu. Mr. Joshi was rewarded in recognition of his unconditional support, persistent activism, advocacy, engagement, tireless contributions with boundless enthusiasm towards the promotion, sustainable development, and revival of Nepal’s tourism sector during the global pandemic and beyond.
Mr Joshi was born on 14th December 1974 and raised in the wilderness surroundings of Bardiya national park. As most of the Parents used to dream of seeing their child as a Doctor or Engineer in the then society, he joined Intermediate of Science in Lucknow, India to pursue a medical career after his 10th Grade in 1990. But his destiny in tourism brought him back to Kathmandu, and he graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce (B. Com) in 1996 and completed MBA in 2000 from Tribhuvan University.
He started his professional career as an Officer at the Nepal Tourism Board in November 2000 and served the national tourism organization for about 20 years with his diverse roles in different capacities from officer to Chief Executive Officer till 24th December 2019.
Mr. Joshi was appointed as the CEO at a very critical period, whereas the post of CEO was lying vacant for a long time and the tourism industry had been severely hit by the 2015 earthquake and successive challenges such as border blockade that weighed down the tourism sector. Besides this, the NTO had the challenge to work under the limitations of the budget and human resources. However, Mr. Joshi dared to take up this tough challenge as an opportunity to stand firm and continue with his efforts leading the way forward and successfully delivered what the industry had expected!
Mr. Joshi was the key facilitator for the formulation of the Post-earthquake tourism recovery Action Plan, some specialized recovery campaigns like NepalNow, Launching the international marts in Nepal and many trade fairs in abroad, the domestic tourism promotional campaigns Ghumphir Barsa, Globalization of Nepal’s Heritage Food, the PhotoNepal campaign and so on.
Working closely with the industry stakeholders was his Mantra. The Stakeholders of Nepal’s Tourism industry observed the exponential growth and achieved a milestone of over 1 million tourists for the first time in the nation's tourism history in 2018 and successive progress in the year 2019.
Even during the global pandemic of 2020 and 21, Mr. Joshi persistently continued his volunteer engagement and supported various associations, public-private forums and platforms to address the survival and revival agendas of the tourism industry.
Mr. Joshi has received multiple recognitions and awards at national and international levels. He was the first South Asian to receive the Highest IIPT Champions in Challenge Award 2018, the Best CEO in Asia in NTO category Award in 2019; and The 'Tourism Heroes Award' by World Tourism Network in 2020.
Today, Mr. Deepak Raj Joshi, is one of the most passionate, dedicated and self-esteemed tourism professionals, driven by his passion to uplift, develop and promote Nepal's tourism sector.