Because the tallest statue on this planet, the Statue of Unity has welcomed lakhs of holiday makers 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.
“Residence to a number of royal palaces, waterfalls, and wealthy cultural heritage, it is without doubt one of 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, though 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 recurrently posting content material to attract consideration. “However nothing labored,” he says.
Practically eight months again, he got here in touch with Delhi-based startup ‘Volunteer Yatra’, which helped him broaden his enterprise.
“Their group helped us report good high quality content material utilizing drones and charming movies highlighting native tradition and meals. As well as, they adorned the property utilizing murals on partitions and inventive 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 rising 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 may have moved to the town for higher job alternatives, however he wished to remain within the village. And due to Volunteer Yatra, he was in a position to run a thriving enterprise whereas being rooted in his village.
The Higher India acquired 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 and marketing, 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 houses 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 and marketing 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 joyful that he provided me to go to him anytime and keep so long as I wished,” he provides.
“This gave me the thought to collaborate with comparable small companies and supply them with the assist of expert volunteers, who in flip will get alternatives to discover offbeat locations without spending a dime,” says Aakash.
After practically six months of analysis, Aakash alongside together 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 and marketing specialists and content material creators to advertise their works, we shortlisted volunteers to deal with this hole.”
After growing the suitable advertising and marketing methods, Aakash assigns volunteers from numerous backgrounds to go to small enterprise homeowners. “Throughout their temporary 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 permits them to embark on significant journeys whereas they save on lodging and meals bills and contribute to neighborhood improvement,” says Aakash.
Up to now, Aakash and his group have established a military of two,000 energetic volunteers who collaborate with hosts for a interval of six months to at least one 12 months. Up to now, these volunteers have assisted 170 hosts — largely hostels, homestays, and self-help teams — throughout the nation in states like Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Jammu and Kashmir, Goa, and Sikkim.
One among 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, “After I got here to Rover Keep hostel, I used to be their solely visitor for the following 15 days. Utilizing my cinematic and storytelling expertise, I recorded distinctive content material concerning the area to draw vacationers to Ghanshyam’s hostel. We additionally adorned domes utilizing wall murals. All of my reels have crossed greater than 40,000 views on Instagram. We are actually engaged on a YouTube sequence 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 give up my job to journey. As a solo traveller, finances is all the time a constraint. However volunteering not solely helped me use my expertise for neighborhood improvement but additionally 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 expenses an annual payment of Rs 2,000 from volunteers. Whereas he expenses Rs 5,000 per thirty days from revenue-generating companies, he claims to take no payment from non-profits and low-income companies reminiscent of Ghanshyam’s.
“As an entrepreneur, usually 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 maintain going with each impactful mission 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 group, have solved the organisational issues of our hosts in essentially the most inexpensive means. One among our hosts may pay for his son’s tuition payment as his enterprise took off after connecting with us,”
“We’ve got skilled so many tales already, with many extra to return,” remarks Aakash.
(Edited by Pranita Bhat; All photographs: Volunteer Yatra)
