Mountain Homestays is a community based tourism initiative to offer unique experiences while empowering the communitiesMountain homestays is a community empowerment initiative that focuses on promoting rural destinations by developing homestays in partnership with the locals. The focus is on reaching out to communities living in the remotest parts of the Himalayan belt in India, such as in Ladakh region in northern India, to promote sustainable and inclusive progress.
Homestays based tourism has multifold benefits to the local communities. It allows a consistent flow of travelers to the rural economies thus creating multiple opportunities of livelihood for the locals. By creating livelihood opportunities at the doorsteps of these isolated villages, we can help curb the major issues of urban migration and cultural loss while enabling their aspirations for a promising future.
We are creating livelihood in the offbeat mountain destinations through community-based tourism. In partnership with the locals, we have developed quality homestays in villages to enable income through tourism.
By creating new offbeat destinations we are promoting local handicraft and centuries-old heritage sites in the villages. We organize themed excursions for travelers to villages on local heritage, history, and handicrafts.
Mountain Homestays are managed and run by village women, thus helping them with doorstep income and making them more confident and independent. We train these women in hospitality and hygiene to take care of the guests.
Gaurav is an experienced management professional with over nine years of corporate experience. He first came to GHE as a volunteer in 2017 to get a first-hand experience of what it take to run operations in the most remote regions of India. Gaurav is currently looking after the Operations and Strategy for GHE. He has trekked extensively in the Himalayas and is a passionate blogger, creating learning modules on Youtube as well.
Manjiri is a graduate from Monash University, Australia with masters in Sustainable Tourism management. An experienced sustainable tourism professional, Manjiri has a strong belief in practicing tourism to bring out change and leave positive footprints. Her experience in Ecotourism in Australia has enabled her to gain an insight into the impacts of community tourism.
Paras Loomba is the Founder of the Global Himalayan Expedition. After a successful International Antarctica Expedition in 2012, led by Robert Swan, Paras quit his corporate job to work in the field of sustainable rural development. Passionate about cutting edge technologies, Paras is actively involved in providing solar based electrification to rural India.
