Rural Tourist Resorts in India

Guess some of you at IM know that few months back i was asking for feedback on a community based tourism project for byrraju foundation in Andhra Pradesh

We kind of expanded the scope of the idea to, setting up a network of rural tourism resorts across India. We are looking at locations ranging from Kerala,konkan coast,punjab etc

The idea is : Provide simple ,clean but elegant cottages in the villages involving the local communities. Combine this with boat trips ,nearby beaches,massage service, some old temples or historic locations etc. We are looking at Urban cookies who can do this over a weekend / extended weekend.

You like the idea ! , please spend a few minutes to answer a few simple Qns for our survey
http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB225TBWBSZAZ

adios
adi

Hi Adi,

Are you approaching this as a business project or a community development project? Is it a for profit or non-profit enterprise? The words 'resort' and 'community-based' seem to be at odds with one another. Lots of questions spring to mind...obviously you're at an early stage but is there some more details you can share with us? I'm particularly interested in how you'll select and involve community members and what their role is in all of this.

Thanks

my thoughts exactly. and what percentage of the money goes to the community members involved?

I'm all in favor of for-proft development! If it's for profit and the idea is successful it will be much easier and quicker to copy it all over India. Sounds like a good project.

Portie

Like non-profits would work with this particular project. Make it a business venture my friend. A friend of mine started the only private resort at the Nagerhole National Forest. It has done well and he is starting another. He had both the joys and pains of using local villagers throughout the project.

We are from a village, and doing it as a ethical business,
and have a responsible tourism policy as well as open to net working wth other similar places, at the same time,we are not that keen on associating with travel agents who want always a bigger chunk as commission. There are lot of people doing this in kerala and now Blue Younder associates are organising and promoting it in a very ethical way .

Kindly visit all the pages or the website

www.harithafarms.com to know how we do it.

To the forum moderators-- Kindly note treat this as a advert.We ony have four rooms and most of them are already booked up and some of the members has also used this property

haritha, I have looked at your website a number of times, and would LOVE to stay at your place! I love your idea of eco-tourism......<sigh>....miss India!

I've a farm land just 20Kms from Delhi and 12KMs from Gurgaon. We do organic farming on it till now just for our own consumption and commercial farming on other farm lands near it that we own. it is in a village near the last of Aravalli range.
Few months back I had thought of building something like this on one of the farm land, but dropped the idea as I did not have enough money to build and do it in a better way and I do not want to do it half baked.
I do not want it to compete with the so called 'resorts' but more of a place where one can relax away from the city, walk around the village, trek to the temple on top of the hill, maybe take a class or two at the local school, eat the local food and more without compromising much on the quality of living. I think this particular land was perfect for anything like this as it just takes 30mins drive to get into Delhi so one can spend the day in delhi shopping/sightseeing and comeback to rest in the village.
I've not completely given it up, maybe when I'll have enough money, I may do it.
Since I visit this village at-least twice a month, I'm aware of un-employment, education and health issues. if not all, I think this project would certainly provide employment to few people in the village.

thanks a lot for your ideas ..
I spent one entire summer at Byrraju foundation trying to make it purely NGO based ,ensuring local community involvement ,but the long gestation of tourism projects makes it tough to entice them to get involved ,esp considering that something like true experential rural tourism has never been tried before in India ( except a few projects here and there, like neral,snow leopard conservation etc)

On the other hand, a pure commercial venture may not be practical due to the importance of local community involvement

The reality ( in my humble opinion) may lie somewhere in the middle becoz I've seen some good community-pvt partnership tourism programs in Africa

At this point, there is no decent primary research available on the potential of rural tourism in India and that's exactly my attempt

Please your opinions or comments, it will help a lot and plz do take the survey
http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB225TBWBSZAZ

Unfortunately responsible tourism has become big business! It seems to have developed alongside the publics genuine interest to travel in a sustainable way. A proven market isn't an invitation for exploitation!
Many companies have branded and marketed themselves as agents of 'responsible tourism', 'eco-tourism' and all the rest. Does anyone know if there is any international certification standards here or do we just have an open market?
Community-based tourism is not some urbanite swaggering into a village waving his big bucks around enticing locals to build huts! Community-based tourism must involve the community at every level, right from conception. Its an organic process developed according to the need and interest of the community. The aim moreover is to benefit the community, not the maharaja!
Don't let my rantings discourage you, but do your research first and be careful what you promise.
Goodluck.

excellent point, not a rant at all.

I have read that any tourist interested in "eco-tourism", "green vacations", etc. should really check up on the operator because some people talk the talk, but they don't walk the walk.

Well I know of one place that shall remain nameless that raped the local forest (against the law) to build wooden huts on the cheap, then styled himself as a camp for "eco tourism".

I agree whole heartedly, too many times I've seen the tag "Green" or "Eco Friendly" only to find its just a marketing ploy. Some kind of certification would certainly help!!

This is why the two perspectives fundamentally don't mix folks. Either you run it as a for profit business and disclose it as such and make the necessary investments (which the green crowd are clueless about) or you run it as a non-profit operation that will not work but make a whole lot of people feel good about their failures.

Trying to please the green crowd with a business venture WILL not work because what is really underlying their position is an anti-business/profit bias.

Thats a load of tosh DD there are perfectly good vaible Eco friendly businesses running at a profit.

I think that's a rather narrow view of people with a green agenda. I would probably fall under your general idea of "loony Green" but have no problem with money being made out of the situation either.
It's a vital componant of making the rural communities breath again.

Properly managed and certificated I see no reason that some ventures would be a great way to bring wealth to rural communities!!

Something along the lines of the Organic Food Certifiacation would work just as well for Eco Tourism, we would have to pay for this of course, keeping within a set of rules costs money and this would be paid for by the customer!!

This won't work with the type of advice provided here from the green crowd, CH. Of course there are exceptions.

For one I market & transport 100 % certified organic vegetables, I provide eco-tours for bird watchers here in Pennsylvania. But it is a for-profit business model. I am now expanding my operations to sell biodeisel.

In the context of the kind of postings here by the green crowd I was responding.