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You and India- Introducing greeters in Indian Travel Industry

By Chandrabhan Singh Nathawat on 22 Comments / 5415 views

Hi Rodinhooders,

 

 

I am Chandrabhan Singh Nathawat, a new Rodinhooder. Along with my MBA friend Chetan Soni, we have launched a travel start-up in India called You and India. This is the one of the first Travel Organization in India that has launched greeter network here. Greeter is a local friend in the city who travels with the travelers in the city showing around local culture, art, festival, eating place or drinking place or hangout place rather than just Touristic monuments.

 

How did we start You and India

 

I was always interested in travel industry. But I had no idea how to enter this industry. Being from Jaipur, it was easy to enter into this by opening an agency there but I had no intention to be just an agent. So I learnt German, did random courses in French and Spanish and finally got admission in IMT. It was here that I got International exposure and a chance to study in France for one semester and there I got to know about Greeters and my mind clicked with an Idea.

 

Back in India I talked to my friends and we did research on Indian Tourism as part of my course. My faculty applauded the report and motivated us to take if forward as an research paper. Instead I choose it to form the premises of You and India and Chetan soon joined me and we registered You and India in 2011 November. But we did not initiated it till 2013.

 

What problems did we found in present travel industry (As result of our primary research and secondary reports)

 

1. Travelers have no proper information about India. Most of the agencies just provide similar packages.

 

2. Travelers accuse that in India the services are not the same that they were promised.

 

3. Limited options.

 

4. No night life

 

5. Trust factor- Hawkers, Touts, Beggars, Shop owners etc.

 

6. Safety Issue

 

7. Language problem. Difficult to understand the local people even if they use English.

 

8. Everyone trying to sell something

 

9. Monument visiting is the only popular reason to Visit India but they see so much on Discovery and other sources.

 

So after Graduating from IMT, we worked for some more time to develop our Idea and finally launched You and India in January 2013.

 

trvl1

 

What we offer now:

 

1. Greeter Service:

 

Greeter is a person who loves to help travelers travel in his or her city. This concept was first used in New York and since then it has spread across the World but still very new. Greeter is not a professional guide but he is one step more close to Travelers. Gone are the days when a guide use to tell about the history of Monuments. Today Travelers is more interested in knowing the culture of city, its hidden gems, entertainment places, best places to eat and night outs for evening and all these can only be achieved through Greeters.

 

Who can be a Greeter: Anyone who loves his/her city. They want to meet new people from different part of world. It is a voluntary service and also we pay for this service. Any professional person, retired man or housewife or student can be a greeter if they know their city. It is generally for 4-6 hours and anyone can choose his/her availability for this service as per their schedule.

 

Currently we are looking for greeters in Delhi, Jaipur, Mumbai, Varanasi, Agra, Jodhpur, Kolkata and Jaisalmer. Other cities would be considered too.

 

We have developed a system of verification to ensure that greeters are genuine people and do not take tourist for granted.

 

If you are interested please go to this link: https://youandindia.in/greeter-india/become-a-greeter/

 

 

2. Experiences:

 

So You and India helps Travelers help through the city. But You and India is not limited to Greeters. Moving further You and India also provides special experiences in various locations. I took my college friends from France to my native village Bidoli on Diwali, they loved it so much that requested me to continue these trips as they could enjoy the real India in peace away from all teasing people in city, away from photo taking people (they did not like being photographed), here they were no stars but just people, Hence the idea of providing experiences was born, today You and India provides various food walks, village trips, heritage walks, jungle safari, meal with families etc trips to provide varied experience to the travelers.

 

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Who can be our Experience Ambassador: Any freelancer who can add value to the Travelers through some unique thing in his/her city. They can offer home stay or cooking class or dinner and lunch with family. They can be professional photographers providing photography tour of city or Heritage walks, or Food tours or any adventure things to do around city. They can do their professional work and still be our Ambassadors.

 

If you are interested please contact us through: https://youandindia.in/travel-experiences/provide-an-experience/

 

We are looking for Ambassadors in: Himachal. Amritsar, Rajasthan, Delhi, Agra, Varanasi, Rishikesh, Mumbai. Goa, Kerala, Hyderabad, Bangalore.

 

3. Trip Planning: 

 

We understand that people come to India for once and they want to see most of it. So we further expanded to help them through travel plans. We provide free travel tips through this service and advice travelers what all they can do in India. Here travelers can buy all the services from us if they want but otherwise the planning is free from our Side.

 

Till now we have greeted more than 50 Travelers in around 20 groups. We aim to expand from 4 cities right now to 15 by the financial year end.

 

You and India is not merely a start-up in travel field but it is an initiative to make the image of India clean and comfortable for travelers so that they give positive feedback for India back home. We hope to see people from different fields joining us as Greeters, Experiences providers and serving Indian Tourism in right direction. We would be grateful if you could put your insights and help us in making You and India even better.

 

 

Thank you for reading our story

 

Chandrabhan Singh

 

Founder -You and India

 

info@youandindia.in

 

You and India

 

 

 

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22 Comments

  1. hey chandra,

    is this the same chetan soni? the half baked beans guy? pls link his name if so, helps connect the dots!

    https://www.therodinhoods.com/profile/ChetanSoni229

    okay – so we’ve got LOTS OF travel gungho rodinhooders in the house including myself. am pinging a few right now. will share links of the ones you can reach out to. 

    in the meanwhile pls SEARCH these rodinhooders on trhs  – akshay chhugani (indian backpacker)

    varun khona (tourlandish)

    sudipta sanyal (the blueberry trails)

    anurag chandna 

    manish (dayhalt)

    gouthami – travel another india

  2. Yes he is same person. Added.

    Thanks for introducing me to other travel entrepreneurs, would connect to them. 🙂

  3. Awesome!!! I would love to be a greeter!!!

    Do you have any background check verification for the greeters?

    I think this would definitely increase the credibility of the brand.

    Anyways amazing plan.

  4. Thank you Anoop for showing interest. We would love to see you as our Greeter. From which city are you? You can just fill the greeter form and we would contact you.

    We do have a verification system to ensure security of Travelers and Credibility of Greeters.

  5. I am from bangalore and I have lot of travel enthusiast friends too.
    We will all fill the form and be an active part of this.

  6. Bangalore: Great we are looking for greeters there, Contact me over mail soon 🙂

  7. Hi Chandra! 

    Great concept. A similar thing was initiated by Mygola but I think they have closed it now. I would have loved to be a Greeter but am on move for next six months. Though I do have a few questions:

    1. Are you booking a whole experience (end to end) or just providing them with a Greeter.

    2. What is in it for the Greeter (I mean financially!). Coz I have done this sort of stuff for fun but it becomes a little boring after, say, the fourth time. And unless there is a financial motivation, it wont sustain.

    Hope to give you some food for thought! All the best.

  8. Thank you Akanksha,

    I hope after 6 months you would join us 🙂

    1. We provide greeters, experiences and also the whole tour packages. The tour packages are mostly customized with our experiences and greeter services in various cities and this makes them different from other Offerings.Right Now though we only provide tour packages in North and West Region of India only. 

    2. Yes, We pay greeters for the work although it is voluntary as we too believe that they are putting their efforts so they should be included in the profit sharing. 

    Would love to hear more inputs 🙂

  9. hey Asha! You forgot me! 

    Preity Thomas, UNIGLOBE Thomas Travel Solutions 🙂

  10. hey preity,

    thanks for pointing out! i had no idea you’re in the travel space! there is another post on the landing page by akanksha bumb in case you are looking for travel content!

  11. Great Initiative!

    We propose to do more of inbounds as well this year onwards! Shall get in touch with you when we have ppl coming in! 

    Yes, here’s one more rodinhooder from the travel industry.

    Best wishes! 

  12. Sure! I’ll take a look. I had missed that one out, thanks! 

  13. Thank you for wishes Preity 🙂

    Sure we would want to work with Entrepreneurs.Here is my contact details. 

    info@youandindia.in

    Drop me a mail and let see if we can have synergy in the Work.

    thanks once again 🙂

  16. Hi Team

    This is Yunus Dange …recently started a portal on Adventure Sports ( http://www.fitrangi.com )

    Your concept is good with clear vision…best of luck..

    keep in touch ..my email Id: go@fitrangi.com

  17. This is so wonderful..I would definitely want to contribute to this.

  18. Thank you for those words Arpit. Sure we want to see people like you contributing 🙂

  19. Need Greeter in Bangalore for Tomorrow and Saturday, if interested contact me on +91 7838590315 urgent. 

  20. hey chandra,

    any updates on You and India? how many greeters do you have on board now?

  21. Hi Asha,

    Nice to hear from you. 

    Yes, we are doing great. We have greeters in over 10 cities now with at least 2 people in each city. But now we are focusing more on North only as the growth here is far substantial than other cities. 

    So we welcome people in Rajasthan, Delhi, Agra, Himachal and Varanasi.

  22. very nice…

    like AirBnB, you can create the global ‘greeter’ community?

    Ps – Thats a diversion from what you do – becoming a social network of greeters vs. serving them..

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