Home >> News & Events >> Charity challenges give new glow to tourism biz

In times like these when tourism sector players can be expected to seek charity from governments, help is coming their way in a refreshingly new revenue model, namely charity challenges. 

Charity challenges, or strenuous tours often involving challenging physical activity, are intended to raise funds for charity even as the participants experience an unusual holiday break, often in a foreign country. The concept has been deep-rooted in many western countries, particularly the UK, and is slowly emerging a significant contributor to the Indian tourism sector.

In a typical charity challenge tour package costing, say $ 2,000, the participant is expected to personally contribute roughly a quarter of that money, and raise around $ 6,000 from friends or institutional sponsors who are inclined to support the specific charity work that will benefit by the tour package. 

While the participant gets to enjoy the $ 2,000 tour for only $ 500, the beneficiary institution will benefit to the tune of $ 4,000. Significantly, the fund raising is done at the participant’s home country and the tour is undertaken elsewhere, benefiting the tourism sector there. 

Sam T Samuel, managing director of Kochi-based Kalypso Adventures told ET that charity challenge packages were a growing segment in the country, with his own company offering challenge packages that involved cycling, trekking and kayaking. 

“In 2008 we hosted five teams from the UK, three of which opted for tours in Kerala and one each for Bhopal and Rajasthan. This year there are no bookings, apparently a reflection of the economic situation, but we are expecting to host nine teams next year, and five of those have already registered”, Mr Samuel said. 

The cycling challenge teams, that often comprise about 100 members, do an average of about 80-100 days cycling per day, which underlines their commitment to the challenge as well as justifying their sponsors’ benevolent attitude to the cause. 

Charity challenges dovetail nicely into Kerala tourism’s responsible tourism drive. According to Kerala tourism secretary V Venu, the state has been able to lift the concept of responsible tourism from the level of individual initiatives to a destination-level play where there is “an individual as well as collective contribution”. 

Kerala tourism rolled out the responsible tourism experiment at Kumarakom and has extended it to Thekkady, Wayanad and Kovalam.