05 October 2009

Where does the Next Business Opportunity - Tourism

While many of educated ones go for starting up a tech start up, there are few things that is currently evolving that has a potential for a fantastic business opportunity in future. India, as a tourist destination is evolving and in a very short future we are going to witness increase in number of foreign tourists. Even the people of our country want to explore places by touring across states. Tourism is evolving as experiential tourism and adventure tourism. The people who tour the country want to know about culture, social, economy by experience (by living with masses in tourist destinations). Another aspect is adventure where people tour places like sea, lake, mountains as adventure. If you are avid traveler and fond of traveling, you may want to think or see traveling from business point of view. It is for sure pays off in future. Doing couple of certifications and investing in allied areas such as food, photography, travel and other adjacency will also help.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I do know a couple in trichy whose hobby is arranging trekking in North east where they worked some time. the lady is a professional dancer and a teacher runs a dance school, husband is not having a conventional profession but does three trekking workshop and combines tourism to north east to children of well of family in trichy. As i talked to him, i realised what kind of potential business it is. He quit his regular conventinal architect employment to make a living out of tourism for pleasure and adventure. Lakshmi , guys have already exploiting. I some where read , the best successfull business man is the one who identifies the opportunity and strike it first before market wakes up. Do you agree with it

Lakshmi said...

@Vaishnav(3rdeye)

You are right when it comes to business. Unless you really want to go big, it pays off even if you are a regional player or 1st/2nd player. When you have huge consumption and particularly lack of quality, the service you offer irrespective of market should work as long as you offer what your customer wants.

For example, going to temples like Kasi and Ramaswaram are being organized for ages but still people are innovating with pilgrimage packages.

I met an entrepreneur in a meeting in Chennai where he also felt that tourism in India is very conventional and likely to undergo a change. Shortly after that, we say Reliance and few other companies into tourism and allied industry.

I feel that any industry will offer an opportunity for new players every 5-10 years. I feel now there is one such opportunity for tourism.

Anonymous said...

I am seriously thinking of doing a freelancing of being a tourist guide and arrange programs for people from Oman to visit kumbakonam and thanjavur with plenty of temples and people have become lazy they need some one to make a plan and help them make the trip memorable. As i am in a profession of changing the old wine in new bottle concept, anything for that matter gives opportunity for innovation and new players every 5 -10 years as you say.

Lakshmi said...

@Vaishnav(3rdeye)

Doing business is selling something to someone. If this "someone" brings in few more business, then we stay in business, else close the shop. :-)

Just now read a post by Seth Godin that is relevant to our discussion - http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/10/fear-of-apples.html

I think there are few websites that offer freelancing for pilgrimage. However still we can't find a quality website. I think the idea of you doing freelancing should work better and may turn into an excellent business.