Hot Ballooning Course

Adventure tourism has a lot of potential for the Jammu region. In order to give a boost to adventure tourism recently the Tourism Department and IISM Gulmarg conducted a Hot Ballooning Course at Jammu.

The course was conducted under the aegis of Indian Institute of Skiing & Mountaineering (IISM) Gulmarg which is one of India’s premier Adventure Institute falling under the ambit of Ministry of Tourism, Government of India. The Institute has successfully organized two Hot Air Ballooning Courses at Jammu each with a time span of 10 days. A total of 25adventure students from all over the country participated and successfully completed each course.

The Directorate of Tourism Jammu has taken the initiative to coordinate with IISM Gulmarg to promote adventure tourism in Jammu region especially the air borne adventure activities and is also expecting to conduct paragliding training courses at Aithem near Surinsar in the coming future. IISM Gulmarg has an active role in promoting Adventure Tourism and actively trains the youth in different adventure Sports such as skiing, mountaineering, high altitude, trekking, hot air balloon and other related adventure activities.  Speaking on the occasion, Former Director Col J S Dhillon, SM who is presently working with IISM as a consultant and supervising its field activities said that India has huge scope for adventure tourism but we have trust deficit amongst organizers and tourists due to safety issues as most of the organizer are ill-trained and use substandard equipments, but the institute under the aegis of Ministry of Tourism, Government of India is trying to bridge the critical gaps and train local youth in such courses so that safe and reliable ventures start mushrooming in Jammu region and Jammu develops as ‘Air Sport Adventure Destination’. He added that Jammu has the potential to become an attractive destination for adventure enthusiasts.