Mumbai based GetSetCamp aims at standardizing the highly disorganized camping accommodation sector in India.
Navesh Dakdar, founder of GetSetCamp, shares with YourStory both the wonder and the struggle behind his entrepreneurial journey.
Navesh says, "Mine is a regular South Indian family, where acquiring a job is given higher priority than entrepreneurship. I had been working with my brother on this venture on a part-time basis for a long time. In 2016, I decided to quit my job and get into this full-time. My parents were initially reluctant, but I cracked a deal with them to let me try for at least six months. I said that, in the case of failure, I would go back. I started full-time in February last year, registering a significant growth in revenue, and I never looked back.”
GetSetCamp was started in February 2013 as a camping equipment rental company in Mumbai. Since then, it has evolved its business model significantly with the changing market. In 2015, it started with the camping accommodation model, and the venture is now going pan-India in 2017.
Navesh says, "My brother and co-founder of GetSetCamp, Nimesh Dakdar, is an all-rounder with excellent customer support management. He is an experienced digital artist and handles the creative part of the marketing and online campaigns."
Ratnesh Lavekar is one of their core team members, handling operations and vendor management. Shikha Dayani is a professional content writer and has been their digital content writer specialist since Day One. She also handles the social media platforms for GetSetCamp.
Core service
GetSetCamp is an aggregator of verified and standardised campsites across the country. It promotes camping as an alternative to hotels and home stays.
Nimesh explains, "Say Mr. Sharma wants to visit Rishikesh on a adventure tour with his family. He wants to try out a camping style of accommodation to stay close to nature or the beautiful locations. So, when he searches online, he would find many options for camping in Rishikesh, from the biggest to the smallest of companies offering it. Since Mr.Sharma is travelling with his wife and trying camping for the first time, like most average Indian travellers, he is concerned about safety as camping is an outdoor activity. This is where GetSetCamp plays an important role. After logging on to the website, he can first search for all the verified and safe campsites across his destination of choice. He gets all the details of the website along with original pictures clicked by our research team. This helps him resolve his doubts on the safety of the accommodation and enables him to book easily through the website."
Market size
As per the Sandler research paper in 2016 on the global adventure tourism market, in 2015, the industry generated a revenue of $7.88 trillion. This analysis forecast the global adventure tourism market to grow at a CAGR of approximately 46 percent during the period 2016-2020.
Compared to the previous fiscal, the company is logging a 100 percent growth in 2016-17, earning revenues of Rs 45 lakh. As it moves into the new year with plans to expand pan-India, the venture is projecting a 200 percent growth in 2017-18.
GetSetCamp works on a commission basis, as per booking, with the campsite vendor. When a customer books with it, a commission is charged to the vendor on the total booking. Its commission percentage varies from vendor to vendor and region to region. In some cases, it secures exclusive selling rights based on the investments made on the campsite.
Currently, the team is bootstrapped, and has also taken out some bank loans to finance operations. Starting 2017, they are looking at expanding pan India thus they have started looking out for investors to fuel the growth.
