World Tourism Day: The pandemic has brought focus not just on secure tourism but also on sustainable tourism. Tourism activities that leave much less carbon footprint are becoming trendy. Sustainable tourism is not just a trend but also a demand of the occasions we live in. Major tourist destinations are advertising sustainable techniques of sightseeing and travel like E-Bike tours which minimize the carbon footprint and also tends to make the travel activity more enjoyable. Travelling in Electric Vehicles in the future and it has arrived with corporations like BLive providing E-Bike tour packages in India’s major travel destinations like Goa, Puducherry, Rajasthan, and so on. In an exclusive conversation with the TheSpuzz Online Samarth Kholkar, Co-Founder & CEO of BLive talked about the future of tourism, EV tourism, their partnership with Postcard hotels and more. Excerpts:
How crucial a aspect will sustainability play in the future of tourism?
Tourism is an ever expanding sector in India, one that is consistently evolving according to the bigger requires of the society. Ironically adequate it is also one amongst the major contributors to pollution. In 2019 alone, tourism contributed close to 11% of the total greenhouse emission. Moreover, specialists estimate that international tourism will improve carbon emissions to 6.5T by 2025. Hence, sustainable tourism is the will need of the hour. We should consciously adopt a sustainable strategy to tourism by decreasing our carbon footprint and adopting strategies like decreasing waste and working with eco-friendly travel modes. With this vision in thoughts our motto is to produce sustainable tourism. To accomplish this we have completed more than 16,000 tours saving more than 15 tons of CO2 emission.As India grows into a major international tourism location, we will need to create and market sustainability by advertising initiatives like EBike tours and culture walks. When we look at Sustainability, neighborhood art and culture are equally crucial. We have ensured that it becomes an integral aspect of our providing showcasing neighborhood crafts, meals or music, in our curated and customized EV tours.
What are some of the travel trends that you perceive post-Covid?
We anticipate a surge in tourism in the drive to destinations close to bigger cities. Travelers will favor to use their personal transportation as an alternative of public suggests of transport. Outdoor tourism will boom, exactly where travelers can expertise fresh air in non-crowded areas. Safety and Hygiene will be the crucial differentiators for the several tourism providers. Travellers will be a lot more conscious in their travel and look for eco-friendly travel choices.
How has BLive been working to market EVs as aspect of experiential tourism in India?
BLive tours are specially made to let individuals “see the unseen.” Most of our guests have stated that they’ve been to a location a number of occasions but have in no way had such a exclusive, immersive and enjoyable expertise of exploring the hidden gems. As a aspect of advertising experiential tourism in India, BLive has partnered with Goa Tourism and Development Corporation (GTDC) and is the official face of EV tourism there. Tourists no longer have to rely on standard cars to discover the nooks and corners but can as an alternative utilise e bikes and other electric cars which are far better options all through. Along with becoming an eco- friendly mode of transport, our E-bikes and the neighborhood guides that come along with them can take vacationers to areas they may not have even heard of or seen prior to. Not just Goa, we have strategic partnership with a number of like-minded players in the hospitality sector who share the vision of green tourism with us. For instance, we have a national tie-up with Club Mahindra. We have also partnered with the Leela, Radisson Blu, Hyatt, Marriott amongst other people locally. Further, we lately tied up with SeleQtions, a brand of The Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL) to provide e-bike tours at all its home areas.
What are your future plans?
We are focused on the expansion of our E-Bike tours to 50+ areas obtaining a fleet of 1000+ E-Bikes. We are also searching for lengthy-term strategic partnerships with like minded major Hospitality brands in the nation. We launched our on the net EV retailer a couple of months back and have currently sold to consumers in more than 50 Indian cities. Next month we will launch our offline retailer. We will develop the identical to 20 more locations by March 2022 exactly where consumers can pick out from several brands of EVs beneath one roof.
Why did you pick out to companion with Postcard? How does it advantage you?
The Postcard Hotel is a collection of intimate luxury hotels whose objectives of sustainability resonates with ours. We joined hands with them to supply eco-friendly premium e-bike tours at all its properties across India. Postcard builds on our motive of providing vacationers an immersive & genuine expertise with no besmirching the surroundings. Both BLive and Postcard aim to preserve the neighborhood culture and heritage of the society and take pride in advertising sustainable tourism. Together, we want our guests to live the travel expertise and embrace the wealthy heritage, culture and atmosphere of the location.
What is the nature, duration, and aim of this association?
The strategic partnership brings about inclusive development of eco-tourism in the sector, specifically substantial on World Tourism Day. We strategy to design and style particular personalised tours for all the guests at Postcard hotels. These tours will look at highlighting the organic beauty, cultural diversity, sumptuous delicacies and heritage of the location. We want guests at Postcard to discover the greener and cleaner side of India by letting them discover what they’ve in no way seen prior to.
The postcard is organizing to open in a lot of distinctive areas like Tirupati, Ranthambore, Mashobra, the Shivaliks. Can we anticipate BLive’s presence there as properly?
Yes. Through this partnership, we will be capable to supply the BLive expertise to the consumers of The Postcard Hotel in all areas it is going to open in the future. We will curate an expertise which highlights the neighborhood flavours of history, culture and meals. Every expertise will be distinct and we are sure the Postcard guests will appreciate it.
How is Postcard organizing to assist you in your mission to market sustainable tourism?
Kapil Chopra, the founder of Postcard, has been our mentor and guide, considering that we ventured into the eco-tourism space and has supported us all through our prosperous journey. We are fairly inspired by his take on luxury hospitality and how he’s altering the definition of luxury hospitality by like sustainable, private and more personalised living experiences. Postcard values experiential tourism like we do and we think the Postcard’s immersive hospitality and wealthy living expertise, set the brand apart, and tends to make it a excellent companion for us. BLive’s partnership with Postcard will assist us provide premium e-bike experiential tours to a new and differentiated consumer base.
You have partnerships with other players in the hospitality sector. Can you share anything about that? How have these fared?
We are closely working with a number of hospitality players and state governments in India. BLive has its hub and E-Bikes in their properties exactly where the guests can sign up for a tour and delight in discovering the neighborhood culture and heritage on effortless E-Bikes. There is a expanding awareness of sustainable travel, specifically in the Post Covid world, which is assisting us drive the demand by means of these strategic partnerships. We’ve witnessed tremendous development in the last six months. BLive has effectively completed 15000+ tours across 15+ areas, thanks to our strategic alliances. We continue to scale our operations and develop our presence across the nation.
How have these hospitality partnerships benefited you?
The Covid-19 has drastically changed the preferences of travelers worldwide. Today, travelers are most conscious and conscious about the influence of tourism on the atmosphere, neighborhood economy and society. They are desperately searching for genuine experiences that can assist them connect with the neighborhood culture with no hampering the ecological balance of the location. They are searching for techniques to delight in their absolutely free time, with no obtaining to contribute to the pollution in the atmosphere. The hospitality partnerships assist us attain out to such vacationers. They develop into our target audience as they are looking for techniques to discover hidden gems at the neighborhood tourist destinations and by means of a exclusive eclectic automobile expertise.
Which place are you organizing to supply your services next? Why?
Our strategy is to supply BLive services at all major tourist destinations across India like Tier 1 and Metropolitan cities. The concept is to make sure that sustainable tourism practices attain each nook and corner of the nation and with each other, we can create a distinctive and cleaner way of enjoying our vacations and figuring out more of the location we keep. In the next couple of months you will uncover BLive at Delhi, Mumbai, Chikmanglur, Agra to name a couple of.
What is the sort of feedback that you have been receiving from guests and the brands?
BLive ranks amongst the major experiences in each city that it operates in. As per TripAdvisor we are ranked #1 in most areas and have more than 90% 5-star ratings. BLive has also received the Travelers Choice award in 2020 producing it one of the major 10% of activities worldwide. Last year, we introduced a host of security suggestions to make sure the security of our consumers on each tour in line with the government’s social distancing norms. Our Vibrant yellow cycles adhere to default social distancing norms as each and every electric automobile maintains a secure distance from each and every other and is mindful of person space, also providing the solution of travelling with close-knit groups for extra security. All our guests are supplied with a B:Safe Kit containing gloves, masks and a sanitiser. We sanitise the bikes and helmets prior to each ride, along with temperature checks for each BLive employees, consumer and Captain. All these suggestions in location have not just made the whole expertise of our guests and brands secure but has also garnered us a lot of positive feedback and appreciation.