Skift Take
Indian vacationers are more and more in search of experiences that enable them to attach with native cultures, uncover new learnings, and create lasting reminiscences.
Shifting away from mundane heritage walks, Eesha Singh, co-founder of No Footprints, brings a brand new take to storytelling via tour experiences.
With 35 experiences in Mumbai and Delhi, No Footprints goals to focus on uncared for conversations about tradition, folks and communities.
“As a substitute of creating historical past sound boring, we needed to be humorous once we began our journey in tourism. We needed to take a look at storytelling from the lens of a standup comedy and make sure that a metropolis is known effectively in a few hours,” Singh informed Skift’s Asia Editor Peden Doma Bhutia within the newest episode of the Skift India Journey Podcast.
Launching with the “Mumbai by Daybreak” tour in 2014, the corporate later developed community-focused excursions round Parsis, East Indians and the indigenous Koli fishing group within the metropolis.
A few of its outstanding excursions are:
- Mumbai by Daybreak: Beginning at 5 a.m., these excursions discover the internal workings of town — from newspaper and milk supply to fishing, fruit and vegetable distribution. “Mumbai is greatest skilled at daybreak, proper earlier than the chaos units in,” mentioned Singh.
- Queer Day Out: Normally led by a queer tour activist, this tour maps out the journey of queer historical past within the nation. “After we launched this tour, folks have been complicated queer excursions with queer-friendly excursions,” Singh mentioned. “And so we would have liked folks to grasp queer narratives, queer historical past and queer subculture.”
- Refugee Meals Tour: These excursions assist vacationers perceive how worldwide communities are reclaiming their identities via meals. Singh spoke of how movie star chef Sanjeev Kapoor did an entire tour with them in Delhi to grasp the capital’s refugee group.
Earlier in April, No Footprints hosted celebrities and curated excursions for actors Tom Holland and Zendaya, mannequin Gigi Hadid, and chef Nigella Lawson on their go to to Mumbai.
New Habits of the Indian Traveler
Indian vacationers are actually extra eager on experiences than merely ticking off an gadgets on a bucket record.
“After we launched our experiential excursions, we weren’t certain if the home traveler would take them on. However now we have noticed a heightened curiosity amongst them to hunt for experiences past food and drinks in a metropolis,” mentioned Singh.
The corporate lately performed a foraging workshop and labored with The Bombay Pure Historical past Society to grasp wildlife conservation.
Pre-pandemic, No Footprints was catering to the inbound market.
“We’ve been fortunate to be on the proper place on the proper time. Because the native viewers had no entry to journey outdoors of their metropolis, we began doing loads of yard tourism which inspired folks to develop into vacationers in their very own backyards, to discover and reconnect with locations very near house,” mentioned Singh.
Moreover, the corporate began providing immersive workshop-led excursions throughout weekends for the home traveler and likewise engaged with faculties to make integrations into the curriculum that allows college students to study extra about their metropolis.
“In a method, home vacationers’ altering journey preferences aligned completely with our providing post-Covid,” she mentioned.
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