Meet the enablers of sustainable travel building from Northeast India

What was the understanding or inspiration behind your entrepreneurial venture Encamp Adventures?

It all began in a remote village at Ziro Valley in Arunachal Pradesh. A start-up set to assess the market opportunity curtailed into an opening chapter of sustainable travel experience in India. Encamp Adventures has established itself as a purpose-driven travel enterprise with a strong foothold in the Northeast. A signatory to the 'Tourism Declares a Climate Emergency', it focuses on making each traveller aware of their environmental footprint, enabling them to take climate action. We believe very strongly in sustainable and responsible tourism, and we do everything we can at our destinations to help tourism have a positive impact on the local environment and communities. That's been our major inspiration. Our vision is to make travel a hassle-free and a nature positive activity and we are doing this by building a climate action focussed experiential traveltech product.

What are the specific challenges and milestones of your journey so far? What are your vision and future roadmap?

As a start-up that wanted to enable sustainable travel, it was a challenge to customize good experiences for travellers who are used to the typical catalogue-based itineraries. With no model in place, we had to start from scratch. Encamp works closely with local guides, villagers and alternative accommodation partners to ensure uncompromised experiences. With packages spanning from recreational activities, adventure sports and leisurely engagements to camping services, we have been delivering experiences that are unrivalled.

How do you envisage making a positive impact on the ecosystem by promoting experiential travel in the northeast? Have any recent milestones/already been achieved in this regard?

We have been transparent about our experiences which have helped us get noticed by young travellers. With experiences that are true to their nature, we have reconnected travellers to nature who help build a sustainable environment (with locals) by engaging in farming activities, planting trees and taking up cleanliness drives. Encamp has impacted 6,000+ rural lives in Northeast India directly and indirectly. We have generated sustainable income/revenue for our local/rural partners across homestays/campsites and adventure activities. About 50-70% of our total revenue generated (on average) goes to our local partners. I am happy to state that 1,05,000 KgCO2e has been reduced in 2.5 years by hosting travellers in sustainable alternative accommodations compared to accommodations with a higher environmental footprint. More than 2,00,000KgCO2e has been measured using Encamp's carbon footprint tool in beta mode.

We are completely pro planet. The conservation of 5,000 trees, recycling of 3,000 kilograms of plastic waste and crowd funding for 1,500 saplings, reiterate this commitment. Further, community outreach has been established with 10 villages in Assam and Meghalaya for forest protection and watershed management projects essentially to reduce soil erosion in the project areas.

Some of our past work on the ground include Zero Waste Camping (Ziro Festival of Music 2019 | Responsible Camping | Encamper's at Ziro), the Plastic Freedom Challenge (Cleanliness drive | Hiking with Encamp Adventure | #noplastic #savenature) and Great Himalayan Clean-Up Drive (Encamp Adventures, the slow traveler's company https://youtu.be/nFfZ8btBPlg).

We are confident of creating economic livelihood opportunities for 10,000 lives in the next 3 years at the rural locations where we operate. I must also mention 'Earth Day River Clean-up and Segregation Challenge' where our team in collaboration with like-minded organisations such as Mid Way Journey collectively segregated 556kilograms of waste in three days. Also through our operations and climate action funds we have been able to support local partners in conserving approximately 20,000,00 litres of water at the camp locations (that are used for feeding domestic cattle in the adjoining villages) by creating check dams and creating multiple revenue streams through agricultural and adventure sports activities. This is making it more economically lucrative for the locals of the land.

You were successful in terms of raising 1 crore from Nedfi Venture Capital Limited. What were the key things in your entrepreneurial blueprint that qualified you for this funding?

Having hosted over 9,000 travellers and corporate clients such as GIZ, Syven Technologies, Zoho Corporation, Royal Enfield, Numaligarh Refinery Limited, JAWA, KrazzyTrip and Ujjivan Finance, Encamp Adventures has also got the opportunity to host a student's group from Spring Dale International School and interact with students from Royal Global School on topics of sustainability and climate change. At Encamp we swear by sustainability. So much so that we implement it in all our operations. We also absorb talent in sync with our core approach and promote a culture that fosters our philosophy. Doing this inspires our partners and locals to take similar initiatives. Our journey was recently provided with a springboard when we received the backing of Rs. 1 crore from NEDFi Venture Capital Limited with support from AIC-SMUTBI. This has been a huge milestone in terms of business growth and expansion. I believe that our transparent approach has been the key which is evident in our twin goals. The first is the implementation of an AI-based travel assistant with a VR interface to help ease and speed up travel planning, which will reduce carbon footprint. The second of course is our expansion plan into 4 more states which will offer the benefits of our approach to more travellers. Moreover, the key factor was the push from our fundraising supporters, Atal Incubation Centre SMUTBI (AIC-SMUTBI) and Professor Dr Tej Chingtham whose valued mentorship and directions have accelerated our efforts and vision for enabling scalable impact in the tourism landscape of Northeast India.

How important is training and mentoring for an entrepreneur? Which are the organisations that are building entrepreneurs in our state? Any other facilitating factors that are needed?

The task isn't easy though. Despite awareness programmes, industries and people seldom take any initiative. It's a huge hurdle to set up a purpose-driven startup business and push people to be more conscious, but once people are made conscious, it is smooth sailing. With major support from AIC-SMUTBI, Encamp has already taken the leap, with others following suit and promoting careers in the sustainability space. Our purpose-driven travel company has been extensively supported by them under the SAPNE 1.0 start-up acceleration programme, which started during the pandemic. This has given Team Encamp a new ray of hope – not just to survive but succeed. Previously, they had helped us to receive support from SAP ARIBA and HDFC as well.

Besides helping to raise funds, the valued mentorship has given us a helping hand in terms of understanding the start-up marketplace -basically providing multiple opportunities to gain exposure to the thriving start-up ecosystem all with the support of Atal Innovation Mission and NITI AAYOG.

In Assam, the Indian Institute of Entrepreneurship and Assam Startup - The Nest are the active ecosystem enablers. Encamp has been supported in the past for participating in business competitions such as NERES, Cisco Technopreunership Challenge, Tata Social Enterprise Challenge, etc.

The most important aspect for startups is to cross the valley of death and the disbursement of state government-allocated grant funding for the DPIIT-recognized startups under the state startup ecosystem would go a long way in helping the startups get through this tough stage.

More business networking events organised through respective industries will enable easier business relationship building between the Northeastern state entrepreneurs and together in a collaborative approach I feel that everyone achieves more.

How much do you credit technology for the success of your business? Can you please share your views?

While digital has been the key to our promotions and bookings, we at Encamp our keen on developing innovative ways to engage more travellers. The funds will therefore partially be used to rev up our website and create a multi-channel interactive interface. The two-fold development plan includes an AI-enabled travel assistant that will help travelers plan their vacations, manage their bookings and minimize their climate impact with help of a Carbon Footprint Calculator.

In addition, we shall pep up the user experience with AR/VR features for engagements on the web, mobile, TV, smartphones and VR gadgets. Thanks to the massive funding, we shall also boost our reach and are set to expand our footprint into 4 additional states in the Northeast – a move that will certainly leave a footprint of sustainable travel in the entire region.

Be it a corporate traveller or an individual, Encamp's Carbon Footprint Calculator makes each traveler aware of their environmental footprint, further enabling them to take climate action. To enhance the user booking experience and save valuable time, which overall reduces one's carbon footprint, Encamp is developing an AI-based travel assistant that will also add a personal touch to each Encamper's engagement, right from the word, GO! This will help travelers plan their vacations, manage their bookings and minimize their climate impact by adopting sustainable travel practices to support the local communities in Northeast India, Nepal and Bhutan. While a hassle-free itinerary curation is in the making, the Travel Carbon Footprint Calculator will certainly leverage the sustainability quotient in the travel plans of the future. You can read more about Encamp Adventure's sustainable travel practices on our website https://www.encampadventures.com/ or follow the developments on their Instagram handle, @encampadventures

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