Countryside tents catches fancy of tourists, replaces hotels in Manali
Manali
An a time when number of tourist increases more than
bedding capacity and mountains of Manali have mushroomed with unplanned hotels,
accommodation in tents has found its own way of nature friendly stay, with over
one hundred youths offering their services to tourists here.
Camps at Sarchu
Luxury Swiss Camps at Sarchu on Manali-Leh highway
The small scale
tourism entrepreneurs, mostly from surrounding villages, have set an example of
innovation by providing luxury services to their guests in a nominal tariff. Tent
accommodation is giving tough competition to the hotels. Gone are the days when
honeymooners used to prefer staying in luxury hotels to avail the world class
services and comfort. Hundreds of honeymooners are enjoying warm hospitality in
tents that have been installed so close to the nature and boasts of all modern
facilities.
Meet Vishal
Thakur, a young entrepreneur from Balsari village, who has chosen tent service
as his passion and also mode of earning livelihood. Inspired by him, many of
his friends too have now adopted this business and are earning good money. “I
could not own a hotel but I fulfilled my dream to host the tourists by
installing variety of tents at low investment. My formula to provide luxury in tents
worked well for me and now I’ve over two dozen permanent camps at Chandertal lake where hotels are not available,” he said.
Not only the luxury tents are cheaper than hotels but the rewarding advantage of tents is that they
can be installed anywhere and can fulfill the need of accommodation even at
those places where hotels are not easily available. Deluxe room, luxury room or
honeymoon suite, one can find tents of all types anywhere in Manali. Most of
the villagers have installed tents in apple orchards which helps them attract
the tourists.
Another youth, Kapil Negi, has earned respect by providing well managed and clean tent service
to his customers for last few years. He said, “Kids, youths and elders,
tourists of all age group love their stay in clean and big tents. Most of the
youths organize DJ parties, bonfire, candle light dinners and honeymoon
arrangements for their guests. Our youths are earning handsome money with a
little investment. Tents and cottages are the future of tourism on mountains.”
The only drawback of the tents was lack of warmth in winter months. So, most of the
tents and camps provide only seasonal service. Another problem that tent and
camp owners were facing was no provision of registration of their property with
tourism department.With inputs from Discover Leh Ladakh

About Author

client-photo-1
The Himalayan

Comments

Leave a Reply