KOCHI: The OYO of camping’...That’s how Samir Dayal Singh, a camper who used Kochi-based Campper’s online portal to find a campsite at Vagamon, describes the site. (For the uninitiated, Oyo is India’s leading aggregator of hotel rooms.) Samir who along with his brother and fiance camped at the misty hills last month gave his feedback on their camping experience on Campper’s website.
He is part of the new wave of campers into the state. From households to college mates, techies, lovers, girls’ groups are all looking for camping out these days, to get a different holiday experience. But, the biggest problem the would-be campers encounter is lack of information on the camping sites in the state (or South India for that matter), and the lack of facilities.
Filling this gap is Campper, a startup from Kitco’s incubator and founded by Prabil MJ and Sooraj Rajan last September, becoming perhaps South India’s only campsite aggregator. “Without any marketing or advertisements, we are getting 70-80 bookings every month,” claims Prabil, who quit a well-paid job at an IT firm in Kochi. “We have seen three-year-olds to 65-year-olds choosing camping using our web platform,” informs Prabil.
The Campper.com website, which has 100-plus campsites listed, has already seen bookings by 900-plus campers in the last 12 months. “We are standarising the campsites in terms of quality and the services provided,” adds Sooraj, who quit his job at SBI in Singapore, to pursue his entrepreneurship dream.
Another feature of the startup company is it gives landowners an opportunity to earn extra bucks.
“They can earn as much as Rs 200,000 by sharing excess land with campers,” says Prabil, who is the company’s CEO. “ We believe that spending more time outside has its own health benefits like sharper thinking and creativity to simply being happy,” he says. For those who wish to just enjoy a night staring at the stars and doing nothing else, Campper will provide the breakfast, dinner and even the barbecue, says Prabil.
Tying up with farmers
Going forward, Campper plans to tie-up with farmers who can provide campsites, not just the green patch of land, but also the experience. “We are very careful that farmers would see this as only an additional source of income, and not the main source,” explains Sooraj. If it succeeds, it can be a win-win situation for the Campper, the farmers, and even the campers.
The farmers can sell their organic produce to the campers at the site, or even provide an additional experience of plucking the agri-produce (say pepper) or involve themselves in paddy cultivation etc. “We tried this at a farmhouse in Mankulam for one of our customers, and this has been a pleasant experience for them,” explains Prabil.As part of the company’s plans to expand its reach, Campper is now looking to raise funds from investors. “We reckon our company to be valued at Rs 4-6 crore. We hope to dilute our stake to raise about $100,000 (Rs 65 lakh),” says Sooraj. If this happens, Campper will figure among India’s first campsite aggregator to qualify into the next level.