Because the tallest statue on this planet, the Statue of Cohesion has welcomed lakhs of holiday makers since its inauguration. Kind of 25 km clear of this towering presence is the old fashioned the town of Rajpipla. Positioned close to the Narmada River, this once-princely state used to be the capital of the previous Kingdom of Rajpipla.
“House to a number of royal palaces, waterfalls, and wealthy cultural heritage, it is without doubt one of the hidden gem stones of Gujarat,” resident Ghanshyam Barot tells The Higher India.
To faucet into the emerging tourism alternatives within the area, Ghanshyam opened ‘Rover Keep’ — a budget-friendly hostel with a rooftop kitchen within the royal the town. “However sadly, lots of the vacationers would simplest consult with the Statue of Cohesion and now not come to Rajpipla, even supposing the city is more or less 20 mins pressure from where,” provides the 38-year-old.
Ghanshyam attempted other the best way to building up the choice of visitors visiting his hostel — from growing an Instagram web page to ceaselessly posting content material to attract consideration. “However not anything labored,” he says.
Just about 8 months again, he got here in touch with Delhi-based startup ‘Volunteer Yatra’, which helped him enlarge his trade.
“Their crew helped us document excellent high quality content material the usage of drones and fascinating movies highlighting native tradition and meals. As well as, they embellished the valuables the usage of work of art on partitions and inventive maps,” says Ghanshyam.
This boosted his fans from 400 to over 1,000, which in flip greater the choice of guests visiting his hostel; thereby expanding his revenue by means of 20 %. “Other people have began discovering us on social media. Now, we welcome 60 to 70 visitors in a month, which used to be previous 20 to 30,” he says.
Like different rural citizens, Ghanshyam may have moved to town for higher process alternatives, however he sought after to stick within the village. And because of Volunteer Yatra, he used to be in a position to run a thriving trade whilst being rooted in his village.
The Higher India were given involved with Aakash Maan, the co-founder of Volunteer Yatra, to know the way he’s tapping into volunteer tourism to assist small companies flourish and save you rural migration.
Aakash, founded in Delhi, possesses experience in advertising and marketing, filmmaking, and pictures. His pastime for entrepreneurship ignited right through his faculty years, main him to challenge into trade. In 2018, he made the daring determination to drop out of engineering faculty and identify his personal manufacturing corporate.
“As soon as, whilst running on a movie on local weather trade, I realised the prospective hurt that forces rural communities emigrate to towns for paintings leaving their houses in the back of. After the movie used to be launched, I made up our minds to concentrate on action-oriented paintings,” he tells The Higher India.
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Aakash won a decision from a chum in Himachal that helped him realise his true calling.
“My buddy used to run a homestay however this trade used to be adversely affected amid the lockdown. He used to be in excessive losses and didn’t also have cash to prepare two sq. foods for his circle of relatives. He requested for my assist in advertising and marketing answers,” recollects Aakash.
“It took us two months to attract vacationers to his homestay. In 3 months, he began incomes as much as Rs 50,000 a month. He used to be so satisfied that he introduced me to consult with him anytime and keep so long as I sought after,” he provides.
“This gave me the theory to collaborate with an identical small companies and supply them with the fortify of professional volunteers, who in flip gets alternatives to discover offbeat puts totally free,” says Aakash.
After just about six months of study, Aakash at the side of his brother Karunesh Maan and Rakshit Kumar introduced Volunteer Yatra in 2021.
A win-win for volunteers and communities
Explaining how the platform works, Aakash says, “Those small companies are depending on commute brokers to draw vacationers. As they can’t have the funds for professional advertising and marketing mavens and content material creators to advertise their works, we shortlisted volunteers to handle this hole.”
After creating the proper advertising and marketing methods, Aakash assigns volunteers from various backgrounds to consult with small trade homeowners. “Right through their temporary on-site commute, they help them in selling their paintings via content material advent, graphic designing, optimising social media, growing work of art on partitions, connecting with proper companions, and a lot more,” he provides.
“All these volunteers are freelancers, on sabbatical, or the ones running from house. This additionally permits them to embark on significant trips whilst they save on lodging and meals bills and give a contribution to group construction,” says Aakash.
Up to now, Aakash and his crew have established a military of two,000 lively volunteers who collaborate with hosts for a length of six months to at least one 12 months. Up to now, those volunteers have assisted 170 hosts — most commonly hostels, homestays, and self-help teams — around the nation in states like Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Jammu and Kashmir, Goa, and Sikkim.
Certainly one of their volunteers, Prem Suraj Tenkar moved to Rajpipla to help Ghanshyam in content material advent and optimise social media. It’s been greater than 40 days since he arrived within the the town.
Sharing his enjoy, he tells The Higher India, “Once I got here to Rover Keep hostel, I used to be their simplest visitor for the following 15 days. The use of my cinematic and storytelling abilities, I recorded distinctive content material concerning the area to draw vacationers to Ghanshyam’s hostel. We additionally embellished domes the usage of wall work of art. All of my reels have crossed greater than 40,000 perspectives on Instagram. We are actually running on a YouTube collection to additional draw in vacationers.”
Whilst the trade seen expansion after 25 days, for Prem, this enjoy has been extraordinarily enriching in my view. “After running within the company sector for seven years in Bengaluru, I surrender my process to commute. As a solo traveller, finances is all the time a constraint. However volunteering now not simplest helped me use my abilities for group construction but in addition to pursue my pastime. It used to be extraordinarily rewarding to discover Rajpipla on my motorbike and document its scenic good looks on my GoPro and drone. I’ve explored where greater than I used to be anticipating,” he provides.
To maintain the for-profit trade, Aakash fees an annual charge of Rs 2,000 from volunteers. Whilst he fees Rs 5,000 per 30 days from revenue-generating companies, he claims to take no charge from non-profits and low-income companies reminiscent of Ghanshyam’s.
“As an entrepreneur, incessantly I’m the remaining individual to attract a wage or occasionally I don’t receives a commission for months. It’s difficult. However our objective is to develop more potent and stay going with each impactful mission that we do,” he stocks.
Speaking about making a good distinction via volunteer tourism, Aakash says, “Volunteer Yatra is a lot more than a volunteering platform. We, as a crew, have solved the organisational issues of our hosts in essentially the most inexpensive means. Certainly one of our hosts may just pay for his son’s tuition charge as his trade took off after connecting with us,”
“We’ve skilled such a lot of tales already, with many extra to come back,” remarks Aakash.
(Edited by means of Pranita Bhat; All footage: Volunteer Yatra)