Diary of a Rural Manager!

Rural tourism has a chance to tap the potential of India’s unique heritage through rural tourism development for inclusive growth and poverty reduction. Even rural tourism can be divided into three main components: 1.  Fair trade tourism is about ensuring that the people whose land, natural resources, labor, knowledge, and culture are used for tourism activities actually benefit from it. 2.  Community-based tourism is tourism in which local residents (often rural, poor, and economically marginalized) invite tourists to visit their communities with the provision of facilities and activities. 3.  Ecotourism is tourism that unites conservation, communities, and sustainable travel. It implies responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people There is a need for comprehensive research in finding out suitable locations, ascertaining market size, tourist profile, perceptions, and expectations, demarcating ro...

Inir Pinheiro is a MBA in Rural Management from XIMB of 2004 – 2006 batch. He skipped placement offers to start up his own company, Grassroutes. Grassroutes is based on the concept of responsible rural tourism wherein tourism is run, managed and owned by local village communities. Today, it is a sustainable and profit making venture transforming unknown small villages, near the metros, into viable tourist destinations; sustainable for him and giving livelihood opportunities to the villagers. There is enough Media Coverage of this rural tourism venture. The best part in his story that he is a "typical city boy", born and brought up in Mumbai. Inir learnt about the realities of village India much later. Inir proves that one need not to belong to villages to work in rural areas. He described once his work in the words of Regina Spektor - “It started out as a feeling, Which then grew into a hope, Which then turned into a quiet thought, Which then turned into a qu...