With the Coronavirus pandemic raging, the world has been cooped up within confined boundaries. Almost every business has faced the brunt of the situation; the travel and tourism industry is one of the worst-hit. Amid such a gloomy picture, ‘The Tarzan Way‘ is here to redefine the perspective of contemporary travel in India.
With brand innovations like the Caravan or Recreational Vehicle (RV), visits to unknown, untouched lands, introduction of technology and AI in tourism, and much more ideas up their sleeves, the travel-based startup is all set to revolutionize the concept of travelling.
‘The Tarzan Way‘ is a New Delhi-based travel organization that aims to provide a streamlined, customer-friendly and unique travelling experience that satiates the taste of every globetrotter who craves for an authentic, immersive and hand-curated itinerary, thereby revamping the entire travel industry. The venture endeavours to portray the Indian culture and simplify travel in the country through their interactive, innovative and continuously improving ideas.
However, with the advent of the pandemic and restrictions on travel, they soon realized that conventional methods of providing “safe generic package” won’t do the trick of attracting customers. Head of Marketing, Mr Naman Mittal said, “To be honest, this setting has made us blow our heads off as well, after all, travel startups or small or medium-sized businesses that were dependent on everyday trips to survive have no option but to either close shop or wait out the pandemic. But since we are always thinking of novel ways to change travel, we did come up with a way to make post-Coronavirus travel hassle-free and as safe as staying at home.”
According to the surveys and polls conducted by them regarding the agitations related to travelling amid tough times, the primary concern that arose was the safety. ‘The Tarzan Way’ does not believe in the reliability of the propositions put forward by similar organizations to merely provide a safe resort in a less-affected state or city. Instead, it opts for an unorthodox approach to cater to a secure travel experience while maintaining social distancing rules.
Besides taking the necessary measures of adequate sanitization of accommodation and transportation, availability of masks, gloves, sanitizers and symptom checking for every traveller, they are also introducing their signature experience-providing plan that is bound to remodel the definition of transportation -the Caravan or Recreational Vehicle (RV) experience.
Caravans are motorhomes, well-furnished with various amenities including kitchen, washroom, seating arrangement-cum-beds. Mr Mittal said, “We’ve been working to bring the Caravan experience in India for more than a year now and have managed to understand the ins and outs of how it could work in India.
By keeping this Caravan vehicle Corona-free, we ensure that the entire band of travellers stay safe during the journey. This ensures no contact with the outside world while going to off-beat safe locations,” they say. With the unique RVs all set to hit the road, ‘The Tarzan Way’ would be the pioneers of introducing the caravan-style travelling in the country.
They have hand-picked unknown destinations, abandoned villages that are now flourishing with reverse migration and untouched by Coronavirus. They also have identified certain famous tourist spots that have not witnessed any new cases of virus outbreak for a considerable period, for travellers who would prefer other means of road trip over a lengthy caravan-living. Their goal of cultural immersion and providing off-beat untraversed destinations check off this requirement.
Longterm exposure to the field has made them specialists in crafting extraordinary experiences like living the life of a villager or learning the subtle traditional arts handicrafts of different localities. Their synergy with the local communities serve this purpose as well as opens a scope for employment in these remote rural areas.
Another innovation brought about by them in the field is the initiation of technology and AI-based software. This would facilitate the creation of “travel bubbles” where a traveller from a specific region would be only able to travel to places that are in that safe bubble, thus reducing the chances of him getting infected. The software would build such an itinerary based on answers provided by the user so that he can book a safe travel location only.
They are prioritizing the need for digital or touch-less travel to make necessary formalities like check-ins, check-outs, payments etc. easier by digitalizing them via dedicated applications.
The AI-software would further help to personalize the experience according to client-preference. They are hopeful that other companies would also follow their path and introduce technology in their systems.
The company is on its way to launch slot bookings for the various recreational activities in a particular travel destination so that a limited number of travellers can have access to them at a given time and a huge crowd can be avoided all while following social distancing norms. Currently, they are accommodating a maximum of 5-7 people in one group.
However, the most compelling challenge would be to convince the customers to embark on the journey when the fear of contracting the virus has gripped the hearts and minds of the people. “For this, the focus of travel companies should shift towards providing an end-to-end, seamless customer experience”, says Mittal. He believes that as the virus won’t leave, for the time being, the only way to cope and survive is to learn to adapt.
Travel will not be the same in the post-Coronavirus situation and, travel companies ought to remodel themselves to emerge victorious. With their eyes set on this goal, ‘The Tarzan Way’ is headed to fight the crisis with a strong resistance crafted with innovation.
