Top 10 Unique Business Ideas in Tourism Industry – With small investment
Traveling is an amazing passion. It gives immense pleasure, experience and knowledge to the people. It also gives enough opportunity to learn and cultural exchanges. Lots of people around the world travel every year. Over the past centuries, traveling was not as easy as we see today. Hence very few people had the privilege to travel. But nowadays, the number of travelers around the world is significantly high and it is increasing day by day in developing countries like India.
To identify the business opportunities in tourism industry, we need to understand the market size. In the early 20th and 21st centuries, only pilgrimage tours existed in India but now it is extended to Ecotourism, Adventure tourism, cultural tourism, Medical tourism, Wildlife tourism and many more. Nearly 18 million foreign tourists arrived in India in 2018(Wikipedia). According to statista.com, there are 610 million domestic tourism visits in 2020. And this figure keeps increasing. Technology and the spread of the internet are also giving it a big thrust. So the business opportunities in the traveling and tourism space is huge.
So here I have identified top 10 unique business ideas in Tourism Industry, which you can start with small investment:
Top 10 Unique Business Ideas in Tourism Industry:
- Travel agency
- Customized Travel planner
- Event & activity organizer
- Hotels, Lodging, Workcations and Homestay business
- Food and Restaurant
- Photo and Videography Business
- Bike, car and cycle rental services
- Local art and craft collection gallery
- Renting Camping ground and selling camping equipment
- Travel Advisor and Guide
1. Travel agency:
Going to an unknown place for the first time is difficult. Right! There are lots of questions in your mind like how to go, where to go, what to see, where to live and have food etc. All these questions can a travel agent can solve. So this creates value to the customers. You must have to analyze your market space. If you are in small cities in India, then you may design some low cost tourist destinations.
If you are in big cities like Bangalore or Delhi, they can introduce lots of travel packages like Adventure trips, Pilgrimage trips, Low cost trips, 2 days trip, weekend trips etc. And accordingly, one can design their operations and service deliveries. You need to look at your customer satisfaction because they will become your trusted advertiser in future. So do well to take care of them.
2. Customized Travel planner:
This is kind of the same idea as the previous one. For this business you must have good skills and knowledge about costing, planning, time management, presentation skills and knowledge about the current market price of different stuffs related to traveling and staying in different places etc. You must plan customized travel destinations itineraries with the best use of time and money. It should give a good experience to the customers after executing your plans. Each individual is different and each one of us wanted to see the world differently. For example, I am a peace loving person. I love to travel the places which is less crowded, peaceful and full of natural beauties. So for me the places like Goa don’t make much sense. So I must recommend traveling to hilly areas like – Himachal, Koorg, Utty etc in India. Since I like to experience the places rather than a mere visit, I would recommend long staying in different places by the travel planner.
3. Event & activity organizer:
Nowadays people love to get experience rather than merely visiting the places. Hence they stay longer in the place to have better experience, better understanding of the places, better understanding of the culture and food etc. So here an activity organizer comes into picture. You can organize different activities like Cycling, Biking, Trekking, Hill climbing, Camping etc. Also the destination wedding is having a good craze among the people. You can organize, coordinate and arrange these kinds of events in different places.
4. Hotels, Lodging, Workcations and Homestay business:
These kinds of businesses are bit of budget heavy businesses. But one can build and earn much more. These kinds of businesses require one time big investment and the operational costs are comparatively low. Also you could rent out your own home for the tourist, who wanted to stay longer. If someone has a big home in relevant tourist places, they can convert it into a homestay and earn. After the pandemic the work culture also changed and a lot of people doing work from hill stations, beaches etc. considering this you can also develop your place as workcation place by providing good internet, electricity facilities. It has a good potential to grow in the future. Also now lots of tourists prefer to stay at homestay rather than staying in hotels to have good knowledge about the culture and food. Similarly hotels and Lodging could be the best options in crowded places, big cities etc.
5. Food and Restaurant:
Food is an indispensable part of every one’s life. Hence it is very crucial and has good potential to grow in tourism spaces. Since tourist places receive different kinds of people from various parts of the country and the world, there should be very diverse kinds of food preferences available. Hence restaurants should have different fooding options in their menu. Some restaurants can be built upon the signature dishes of the local fooding practices. Like in North Eastern states of India have different foods and practices than North and South. So one can build a cottage-like restaurant having local food options for their customers.
6. Photo and Videography Business:
Traveling is a lifetime experience and everybody wants to retain it through photos and videos. In the contemporary social media days, its relevance has increased more. To fulfill this need you can provide professional photography and videography services to the travelers. You can create packages which must have like 10 mins video, soft photo copies with some hard copy. And I hope everybody loves to upload their videos on YouTube, Facebook. And also tell your customers to tag you while uploading on social media. You can improve your brand value, because your customers are your promoters and also with good fan following on your social media profile you can bring advertisers to your profile and can generate a good amount of revenue from this.
7. Bike, car and cycle rental services:
Everyone likes to explore nearby places by bike or car. This also has good potential to grow. You can provide an electric car or Bike or cycle. Because these are environment friendly and also will add some value to your business. You can tell your customers that you are environmentally conscious and understand the fragileness of nature. Also you can provide low cost vehicles. And this will differentiate you from other businesses.
8. Local art and craft collection gallery :
This is also a good business idea and every tourist demands that they should have some portray, paintings, handicrafts to showcase in their home. In this business you can be a retailer or manufacturer . If you are a retailer you must have good knowledge in the collections of arts and crafts. And have some creative ideas about how you will showcase your gallery.
9. Renting Camping ground and selling camping equipment
Camping is also a major part of adventurous tours. Staying under the open sky, way far from city noise and living a very simple life is also an awesome experience. In this place you can develop business. You could develop some camping sites on your owned land or leased/rental land with all the basic amenities near to a river side or at the top of the hill or mid of forest. This business also does not need huge investment.
10. Travel Advisor and Guide:
This is also a small business idea which you can build up of your own. This does not need much initial investment and human resources. You need to collect some good and quality information about the places and guide the tourists. Before doing that you need to assess your customer what they want to listen to. For example if some body is not interested in history, you can skip that and tell something else about the place.
You can also help people to design their trip plans like – for honeymoon couples you could suggest good places and accommodations, for adventure enthusiasts you could suggest and plan some relevant itineraries and activities. You could also earn a good amount of revenue from referrals Like – for referring to good hotels, good homestays etc. But you need to ensure your customer satisfaction at the end. Otherwise you will lose customers because of their bad experiences.
Beyond the above business ideas, there are many other businesses that could be setup in the tourism space. So try to explore the opportunity. If you plan well and execute well then you may create big business out of it.
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