Country: India

Organization: Umeed

Year the initiative began: 3

Project Website: picasaweb.google.com/ajender

Positioning in the Mosaic of solutions:

• Main barrier addressed: Lack of quality assurance
• Main insight addressed: Establish community incentives

Youtube upload:

What is the goal of your innovation?
Develop Geotourism, in the Indian Himalayas,by developing the community skills and develop infrastructure.Promotion of untouched rural destinations as professionally managed geo-tourist sites.

How does your approach support or embody geotourism?
Uttarakhand himalayan region, in india, is visited by more than 2 million tourists,evry year.The tourists have a few relegious destinations and a few british period,hill stations in there hills,which become over crowded during season.Private hotels,restaurants,shoping plazas,are what the tourists get to see.A region with 17000 villages,but not a single tourist visits any village or interacts with the local community.Our group working closely with farmers,and women of the rural areas,feels there is a need to upgrade the skills of the local residents,so that they can become hosts to foreign and indian,tourists. The tourist also should feel the unique experience of living in a mountain village,closely experiencing the daily chores of a mountain village, but also able to get the best possible comforts as a tourist.The communities will also get the opportunity to promote and sell their traditional handicrafts,as otherwise these traditional cultures are dying fast.All efforts will be made to ensure the ecological and the sociological impacts of such an exercise, and capacity of the community as well as the tourists will be made,to make this experience win-win situation for everyone, including the ecology of the mountains. We propose to promote 5-7 village destinations under this project, as a demonstration for geotourism in the India himalayas.

Describe your approach in detial. How is it innovative?
Our Approach is simple, and it starts itself from the community rather than the tourists. Himalayas are dying a slow death,due to increasing and unsustainable pressure on them.The tourists,need to come in this part of tthe country,due to the beauty and the weather.But flocking by a majority of tourists,to a few locations,has increased migration of people from other parts of country to these towns, making the simple hill people,further marginalised.The businessmen coming from outside,do not use sustainable technlogies,to protect the mountains,or the local culutre,which is how, the mountains are becoming like badly planned,cities with traffic jams,and choked sewers. Our Approach,wants to promote new rural destinations,which will be primarily managed by the local village residents,and the benefit from the business,will contribute,towards building better villages,planting more trees, and creating infrastructure like roads,internet,to these otherwise marginalised villages,but located at beautiful locations. Once the idea clicks in the minds of the locals,by seeing the geo-tourism villages,it will further promote the model,therefore,every village offering a unique cultural and geographical package. A single internet web-site will details of all such destinations,will be sufficiant to market such destinations. SOme basic infrastructure like eco-friendly toilets,solar cooking devices,and basic food and stay arrangements,will have to be done,with equal communuity contribution.

What types of partnerships or professional developement would be most beneficial in spearding your innovation?
Initiate with community workshops,on their willingness to partner and promote the village as a geotourism destination.Once agreed the community will do a Participatory Rural Appraisal of their resources and things which need to be repaired and modified,with facilitation from our team,which is experienced in eco-tourism development. A budget and community contribution will be worked out and work will be initiated in the villages.Each village becomes a rural enterprise,with local village people,getting the revenue and converting their village into a complete eco-village.A promotional package will be developed,and promotion of the sites will be done through internet and other means,by our team. Tourists will visit and provide their feedback,on further improvements they desire. Once the funds spent on the village are recovered by tourists revenue,more such sites will be promoted with the same fund amount.

In one sentence describe what kind of impact, change, or reform your approach is intended to achieve.
Community managed geotourism, for conservation of environment,and a cultural tourism experience for the tourists from around the world.

Describe the degree of success of your approach to date. Clearly define how you measure quantitative and qualitative impact in terms of how your approach contributes to the sustainability or enhancement of local culture, environment, heritage, or aesthetics? How does your approach minimize negative impacts?
There have been experiments,some of them have got a good success,in promoting community managed tourism in the himalayas.Community participation in the total process,in the key for long term sustainability.Using technologies like solar cookers and electricity from a micro-hydel will bring the conservation quotiant.Promoting more number of villages,with ensure,limited expansion of tourist crowd in each village, and each village offering unique,socio-cultural and natural scenery,making the village a once in life time travel experience. local crafts,organic agriculture produce,and medicinal herbs,will get a ready customer in the form of these tourists, and added revenue to farmers,artisans and other sections of the village,who may not be directly involved in hosting the tourists,at their places. Bio-degradable sewerage systems,and minimal use of vehicles to reach the village (we will use mules,and carts),will further minimise any negative impact of such interventions in the village. The additional revenue streams coming for the farmers,the women self help groups,and the artisans are the quantitative benefits of this enterprise. Addtionally eco-friendly technologies,being demonstrated at village level,will be a new beginning in making the himalayan villages an example of a complete self-sustainabale and eco-friendly existence.

How does your program promote traveler enthusiasm, satisfaction, and engagement with the locale?
The tourists, visiting the villages,will learn organic farming practices, Will have their own vegetable gardens to pluck vegetables and frutis,and will interact with the village children and other folks,proving them awareness of new avenues.We can link these villages through intenet kiosks,providing a connected rural experience, and the same internet can be used by the villagers for getting farmer education,e-school for children and getting enrolled in various government and other government projects and schemes. The visitors can visit the local streams, get into adventure tourist activities like rock climbing,rafting,and trekking,for which the himalayn mountains are very well placed.The tourist can live like a villager,or like an artisan,or a sheperd,or just like an ordinary tourist, that is their choice. Satisfaction in terms of food,cleanliness and good stay,will be ensured through building the basic infrastructure and community level trainings on tourist management.

In what ways are local residents actively involved in your innovation, including participation and community input? How has the community responded to or benefited from your approach?
We are already promoting two such sites,where the community farms have been converted into demonstration farms,with a basic resort in the middle of a himalayan orchard.The community gets the share in revenue,for managing the guest on a per guest basis,rent for the land they have provided, and other forms indirect livelihood to other people in the village.An artisan workshop has also been set-up with govt. support in one these sites,where the artisans get to interact with the urban tourist buyers on a daily basis.Women groups have made herb nurseries on the same sites,where they grow various plants which are supplied to the surrounding villagers,through various government project. The tourist sites promoted by us,have become the central point for all village development activities for that region. Fruit processing equipments are being set-up in one of the sites,to develop juices and jams,for the tourists visiting these areas, the unit will be managed completely by the local community.

Describe how your innovation helps travelers and local residents better understand the value of the area's cultural and natural heritage, and educates them on local environmental issues. How do you motivate them to act responsibly in their future travel decisions?
The hill people,because of lack of any monetary benefit from the tourists inflow,are frustrated and are forced to migrate on a large scale from these areas. Lack of irrigation facilities,and any sustainable source of livelihood for the local youth and woman have further marginalised the village community. The local culture is also dying as the bamboo artisans, and local wooll weavers, and organicn farmers, are not able to sell their products,with changing rural needs and competition from mainstream products.The ethnic products,can only get good price from only foreign or rich buyers.Our tourism initiative brings a buyer to a producer,visitors can order their rabbit wool shawl, and see it getting made,during their stay and take it as a rememberance of the mountains and pay a good price also.The villagers gain,the tourists gain an experience, and the local heritage gains visibility and a reason to be protectred. Tourists understand that contamination of water here directly affects them

Is your initiative financially and organizationally sustainable? If not, what is required to make it so? What is the potential demand for your innovation?
The initiative is a fool proof financially sustainable model.It may have a gestation period of atleast one-two seasons.The benefit is fairly distributed,amongst different social groups and individuals,at the village level amongst the farmers,artisans,weavers,and the host households. Our backend team,gets a margin out of every tourist transaction,on a village basis,and the back end team susrvives financially. Our financial viability is always dependent of sustainability of these village tourist destinations.Slowly more such sites will develop on its own,as a rippling effect of the intervention.A competetive environment amongst rural sites at that time,will further contribute in gradual evolution in the development of this rural industry. The entire region can become green again,as greenery pays.Demand for such rural tourism,is increasing gradually,and is here to stay,therefore the demand will be keep pace with the increasing number of village sites. The migrated farmers will all comebak

How is your initiative currently financed? If available, provide information on your finances and organization that could help others. Please list: Annual budget, annual revenue generated, size of part-time, full-time and volunteer staff.
The initiative is mostly financed by the savings of the community and savings of individual members of our team.Some portion for the women nurseries,and training facility,has been provided by the govt.The revenue has also started coming from the tourists,but not susbstantial enough,because of sites not being completely developed yet. Each site took around,$20,000 for infrastructure,and $5000 for the capacity building and active handholding of the community for the initial two seasons.Later expenses are covered by the revenue generated through tourist payments.In five years the investments can be ploughed back,and put for development of new sites.The initiative requires the part-time or full time community entreprenures.The back end marketing and tourist managment cell,which is a team of 12 full time professionals.The annual budget and expenses will be dependent more on the number of sites being developed and will increase as the number of sites increase.

What is your plan to expand your approach? Please indicate where/how you would like to grow or enhance your innovation, or have others do so.
The Initial 5 sites developed will generate some revenue in next 2-3 seasons.Part of this revenue will be taken out as return on investment of the fixed costs of site development.This can be re-invested in the form of seed money in other village sites,where the local community shows interest in replicating this model in their villages. More and more families from the same village will try to join the gang,and make other facilities available to the tourists, like food item stores,weaver units and adventure activities. This enhances the reach of this investment to a wider community audience. We as the back end support team,will have more clients, and more entreprenures, asking for the handholding and marketing support services. We can also give them a rating,and provide a calssification based tourist menu. More sites, more revnue, more development,and there may be people,who will be sceptical on this expansion plan. today forests are degrading, community is migrating.THIS will STOP..

What are the main barriers you encounter in managing, implementing, or replicating your innovation? What barriers keep your program from having greater impact?
Main barriers are the overall macro level tourism lobby,trying to malign this process also. Community empowerment and leadership skill, will play a major role,in keeping this activity beneficial for the community. The initial 5 sites,their development process and their community empowerment processes,will influence all such future village level initiatives. The socio-political lobby may also try to stop this development,as if villagers become aware and rich,will increase the demand for services,infrastructure and better governance.But the increase in the revenue,for the exchequer,will definatly motivate the government systems also,to support this village level tourism development.Some villages will not be that beautifully located,or vey far from the road,or having severe weather conditions. Such Villages may not attract direct tourists,but can definatly develop the enterprises,food processing and handicraft products,or develop as village marts,which will make them also part of some part of the revenue stream.

What is the origin of your innovation? Tell your story.
I am a tourist,and i love mountains.my website http://picasaweb.google.com/ajender has all my travel photographs,in the "piligrimage in the himalayas" section.I have been travelling to some of the best resorts,spas and hotels,where i found that A near to nature, feeling is missed by many fellow tourists.This experience,motivated me to,try this in some of the villages,and it worked. There are villages,which already do it,but the infrastructure and the skill level of the villagers,limit the benefit to a larger group.We tried to renovate the concept with a more professional approach.IWe hope it works..

Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers' marketing material.
PG in Rural Management,India.Social Entreprenur,Mountain Livelihoods,and e-governance. Worked with organisations like CARE,Government,and World Bank Supported E-governance Projects.Working on Marketing of Moutain Products,promtion of e-education and HIV awareness, through an NGO called Umeed (meaning "Hope" in Hindi).

Please write an overview of your project. This text will appear when people scroll over the icon for your entry on the Google map located on teh competition homepage.
Indian Himalayas,A tourism heaven,but tourism not managed by the local communities. Lack if other income and depleting agriculture and handicraft revenue,has lead to large scale migration down the hills,of local youth, for employment.A community owned,village leve,tourist Hosting system,professionally managed,and environmentally protective.A community based tourist revenue model,which leads to promotion of organic agriculture,handicrafts,with tourism. Coomunity benefits,environment benefits,and its gradual replication leads to the the mountain eco-system and global climatic impact. See details,to know more..thanks

Contact Information
Mr. Ajender Singh Chawla
Program Manager
Umeed
T.A 42, Phase II, (73 Upasana Enclave), Panditwari, Dehradun
ajender@gmail.com