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Because the tallest statue on the planet, the Statue of Unity has welcomed lakhs of tourists since its inauguration. Roughly 25 km away from this towering presence is the quaint city of Rajpipla. Positioned close to the Narmada River, this once-princely state was the capital of the previous Kingdom of Rajpipla.
“House to a number of royal palaces, waterfalls, and wealthy cultural heritage, it is among the hidden gems of Gujarat,” resident Ghanshyam Barot tells The Higher India.
To faucet into the rising tourism alternatives within the area, Ghanshyam opened ‘Rover Keep’ — a budget-friendly hostel with a rooftop kitchen within the royal city. “However sadly, a lot of the vacationers would solely go to the Statue of Unity and never come to Rajpipla, regardless that the city is roughly 20 minutes drive from the place,” provides the 38-year-old.
Ghanshyam tried completely different strategies to extend the variety of visitors visiting his hostel — from creating an Instagram web page to usually posting content material to attract consideration. “However nothing labored,” he says.
Almost eight months again, he got here involved with Delhi-based startup ‘Volunteer Yatra’, which helped him develop his enterprise.
“Their workforce helped us report good high quality content material utilizing drones and charming movies highlighting native tradition and meals. As well as, they embellished the property utilizing murals on partitions and artistic maps,” says Ghanshyam.
This boosted his followers from 400 to over 1,000, which in flip elevated the variety of guests visiting his hostel; thereby growing his revenue by 20 %. “Folks have began discovering us on social media. Now, we welcome 60 to 70 visitors in a month, which was earlier 20 to 30,” he says.
Like different rural residents, Ghanshyam might have moved to the town for higher job alternatives, however he needed to remain within the village. And because of Volunteer Yatra, he was capable of run a thriving enterprise whereas being rooted in his village.
The Higher India bought in contact with Aakash Maan, the co-founder of Volunteer Yatra, to understand how he’s tapping into volunteer tourism to assist small companies flourish and forestall rural migration.
Aakash, based mostly in Delhi, possesses experience in advertising, filmmaking, and images. His ardour for entrepreneurship ignited throughout his school years, main him to enterprise into enterprise. In 2018, he made the daring choice to drop out of engineering school and set up his personal manufacturing firm.
“As soon as, whereas engaged on a movie on local weather change, I realised the potential hurt that forces rural communities emigrate to cities for work leaving their properties behind. After the movie was launched, I made a decision to concentrate on action-oriented work,” he tells The Higher India.
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Aakash acquired a name from a pal in Himachal that helped him realise his true calling.
“My pal used to run a homestay however this enterprise was adversely affected amid the lockdown. He was in excessive losses and didn’t even have cash to rearrange two sq. meals for his household. He requested for my assist in advertising options,” recollects Aakash.
“It took us two months to attract vacationers to his homestay. In three months, he began incomes as much as Rs 50,000 a month. He was so comfortable that he provided me to go to him anytime and keep so long as I needed,” he provides.
“This gave me the thought to collaborate with comparable small companies and supply them with the help of expert volunteers, who in flip will get alternatives to discover offbeat locations at no cost,” says Aakash.
After almost six months of analysis, Aakash alongside along with his brother Karunesh Maan and Rakshit Kumar launched Volunteer Yatra in 2021.
A win-win for volunteers and communities
Explaining how the platform works, Aakash says, “These small companies are depending on journey brokers to draw vacationers. As they can not afford expert advertising specialists and content material creators to advertise their works, we shortlisted volunteers to handle this hole.”
After creating the best advertising methods, Aakash assigns volunteers from various backgrounds to go to small enterprise homeowners. “Throughout their transient on-site journey, they help them in selling their work via content material creation, graphic designing, optimising social media, creating murals on partitions, connecting with proper companions, and far more,” he provides.
“Most of those volunteers are freelancers, on sabbatical, or these working from residence. This additionally allows them to embark on significant journeys whereas they save on lodging and meals bills and contribute to group improvement,” says Aakash.
To date, Aakash and his workforce have established a military of two,000 energetic volunteers who collaborate with hosts for a interval of six months to at least one yr. To date, these volunteers have assisted 170 hosts — principally hostels, homestays, and self-help teams — throughout the nation in states like Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Jammu and Kashmir, Goa, and Sikkim.
One in every of their volunteers, Prem Suraj Tenkar moved to Rajpipla to help Ghanshyam in content material creation and optimise social media. It has been greater than 40 days since he arrived within the city.
Sharing his expertise, he tells The Higher India, “Once I got here to Rover Keep hostel, I used to be their solely visitor for the following 15 days. Utilizing my cinematic and storytelling abilities, I recorded distinctive content material concerning the area to draw vacationers to Ghanshyam’s hostel. We additionally embellished domes utilizing wall murals. All of my reels have crossed greater than 40,000 views on Instagram. We at the moment are engaged on a YouTube collection to additional entice vacationers.”
Whereas the enterprise noticed progress after 25 days, for Prem, this expertise has been extraordinarily enriching personally. “After working within the company sector for seven years in Bengaluru, I stop my job to journey. As a solo traveller, finances is at all times a constraint. However volunteering not solely helped me use my abilities for group improvement but in addition to pursue my ardour. It was extraordinarily rewarding to discover Rajpipla on my bike and report its scenic magnificence on my GoPro and drone. I’ve explored the place greater than I used to be anticipating,” he provides.
To maintain the for-profit enterprise, Aakash prices an annual price of Rs 2,000 from volunteers. Whereas he prices Rs 5,000 per 30 days from revenue-generating companies, he claims to take no price from non-profits and low-income companies akin to Ghanshyam’s.
“As an entrepreneur, typically I’m the final particular person to attract a wage or typically I don’t receives a commission for months. It’s powerful. However our purpose is to develop stronger and preserve going with each impactful challenge that we do,” he shares.
Speaking about making a optimistic distinction via volunteer tourism, Aakash says, “Volunteer Yatra is far more than a volunteering platform. We, as a workforce, have solved the organisational issues of our hosts in essentially the most reasonably priced approach. One in every of our hosts might pay for his son’s tuition price as his enterprise took off after connecting with us,”
“We have now skilled so many tales already, with many extra to come back,” remarks Aakash.
(Edited by Pranita Bhat; All images: Volunteer Yatra)
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