Travel India News

Bed and breakfast accommodation is not a new phenomenon in the West. People offer their houses for guests to stay in. Breakfast is served in the morning, either in the bedroom or more commonly, in a dining room or the host’s kitchen. And bathrooms are, in most cases, private. This kind of accommodation is also simply referred to as Bed and Breakfast (B&B).

Usually bed and breakfast facilities serve as either the primary occupation or as a secondary source of income for the owners. The staff often consists of the host and members of the family who live there.

Bed and breakfast facilities usually offer better access to popular tourist spots which otherwise may not be located at a convenient distance from the city centre where most other lodgings may be situated. Bed and breakfast facilities are usually to be found closer to places where most large lodging competitors do not establish a guest accommodation. But in large cities where hotels can be very expensive and rooms scanty, bed and breakfast facilities are available within city limits too.

Bed and breakfast facilities and India:

India is now slowly catching up with this novel concept of bed and breakfast due to several reasons. With lakhs of tourists coming to the country for different reasons like holidaying, medical treatment, business, etc., hotels are finding it difficult to cope up with the pressure. Moreover, there are many beautiful and exquisite tourists spots where building hotels and other forms of lodging options may not be permitted or economically viable.

This is where bed and breakfast facilities come to the rescue! So bed and breakfast facilities are perhaps the best option that travellers and tourists can opt for. Not only do they provide one with affordable accommodation, but also offer a unique opportunity to experience Indian culture first hand in all its glory.

Despite the rising demand of tourists and visiting business executives opting for bed and breakfast facilities, a year ago there was a lack of a proper platform where the right guest could meet the host of his choice or vice versa. There were many attempts to connect them, but all these efforts, both online and offline, failed to create much response.

However portals like Bharat Homestay Dotcom have successfully capitalized on this idea and are doing brisk business.

Bharat Homestay is the first India bed and breakfast portal where anyone - both guests and hosts - can come and post their bed and breakfast requirements. And all for FREE. Bharat Homestay is a free meeting place for guests and hosts of India bed and breakfast facilities.

So guest looking for bed and breakfast accommodation, rent apartment, budget bed and breakfast or house in India can search and host their apartment, house information if they want to rent and earn money.

The advantages of staying in a bed and breakfast facility are many. One can get an actual feel of the local way of life. It is a very cheap holiday package that pays rich dividends. One may travel to India for just a week or two but carries back fond memories for a lifetime. After one’s bed and breakfast travel to India, one makes lifelong friends from a country that one comes to love. Without doubt bed and breakfast facilities give a personal touch to your holiday in India.

Bed and breakfast facilities can be a comfortable, affordable option for not just tourists, but also for visiting businessmen as they provide a unique opportunity to mingle with the local populace, which could be beneficial in enhancing one’s business and clientele. Moreover, with strict norms for bed and breakfast facilities operating in India, security is never a problem.

Indeed, with India turning into a tourists’ paradise, the country’s tourism market has great potential and several policies and programmes have been framed for the development of the sector. And with hotels finding it difficult to cope up with the pressure, bed and breakfast facilities can emerge a winner!

Here are some of the best bed and breakfast facilities in India to choose from:

Keeping the view that the year 2009 has been a tough year for the travel industry and the coming year will gather more momentum, CII and SATTE today joined hands to organize India Business Travel Conference as a companion event of SATTE 2010 in New Delhi.

Business travel bookings are expected to show a gentle upswing, as economy steps in 2010. Asia/ Pacific region has registered a much higher growth rate of 5.1 percent in November 2009 compared to 2.1 percent globally. As India’s economic prospects improve further with Asia’s financial recovery the business activities and travel is expected to shoe more volume growth in the second half of 2010. This is likely to gather more momentum in 2011, say experts during the conference.

Last year the travel industry plummeted by nearly 15 %. With reduced budget, business travellers started looking for lower fares, budget hotels and to control the number of trips it resorted to virtual alternatives like video conferencing.

It also outlined the challenges impeding growth of business travel in India which included Poor Urban infrastructure, inadequate facilities for development of the Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions (MICE), Expensive hotels and flights, shortage of trained manpower, experts added.

In his welcome address, Ankur Bhatia, Past Chairman, CII Delhi State Council & MD, Managing Director, Amadeus India Pvt. Ltd, spoke on the future of Corporate Travel and highlighted the needs of the new age business traveler, role of technology and the innovation which is driving the business travel to new scales across the globe.

Jyotsna Suri, Chairperson & MD of The Lalit Suri Group, in her theme address, mentioned that India as a country is not geared up for Business Travel, particularly MICE travel as the infrastructure is not up to mark.

It was also recognised that India currently attracts a very negligible share of USD 300 Billion Global MICE Market. Limitations of Infrastructure such as Convention & Meeting Centres, Hotels and high cost of travel are largely responsible for this situation.

It was believed that both Private and Public partnership is required to get India its fair share of this very lucrative tourism segment.

In terms of Domestic and Outbound MICE, it was felt that corporate buyers have an opportunity to structure their MICE programmes on a timely basis if they are to reap full benefits towards motivation and enhanced productivity of employees, as well as recognition & high sales from channel partners.

Similarly suppliers and travel agents can better leverage the MICE opportunity with specialist staff and MICE focussed offerings. In conclusion, all participants agreed that while all segments of the value chain is not ready there is an immense opportunity to quickly come up to speed and extract value for all stake holders.

The Conference was attended by large gathering of professionals across the travel industry spectrum & corporate buyers and supported by Amadeus India & Via World and KPMG India was the knowledge partner for the event.

Today India is witnessing a steady and ever-increasing inflow of tourists to the country. In addition, domestic tourists’ volume is also increasing by the day as Indians are traveling all across the country. With these increasing number of tourists, hotels are falling short of rooms.

This gives the opportunity to people with spare rooms to open their doors to tourists - to stay with them and learn the ways of the local.

However to get guests, the host of the homestay needs to have online presence. Just registering with the government’s bed and breakfast scheme is not enough. Before a guest contacts you, he would like to see the images of your homestay and the facilities you are offering.

This is where Bharat Homestay comes to the rescue. So if you have a spare room or is a registered bed and breakfast or homestay, come and post your homestay details in bharathomestay.com and we assure you that you will get more visitors/ tourists than you can imagine. And what’s more…Registration is absolutely free.

Bharat Homestay is the only portal in India entirely dedicated to India Homestays and is the only portal in the country offering its services totally free of cost.

Now that you are aware of the benefits you will get by registering and posting your homestay with Bharat Homestay, here are the simple steps you need to follow to get your homestay listed in Bharathomestay:

Posting Guidelines:

Reacting sharply to the alleged rape of a minor Russian girl in Goa, various sections in government including Union tourism minister Selja and the national commissions of women and children on Wednesday voiced their concern over the deteriorating law and order in the state.

They urged the state government to exercise greater care for safety of tourists. This comes close on the heels of similar “outrage” expressed by Russia on this and other incidents. Russia has called for stringent action be taken failing which it would ask its citizens to refrain from visiting Goa.

In a strongly worded statement, the Russian embassy said,”We are shocked and deeply outraged by the reports about the disgusting incident in India’s well-known resort in Goa, when a 9-year-old child from Russia became another victim of a rapist. The Embassy reiterates its grave concern over increasing crimies against Russians in Goa.”

“We expect that the Indian authorities to immediately take strict and efficient measures to ensure the safety of Russian citizens. Otherwise, we will have no other option but to recommend Russian tourists to refrain from visiting Goa,” the embassy statement added.

The embassy pointed out that the investigation of the criminal assault and rape of a 25-year Russian woman last December was being conducted “inefficiently.”

Union tourism minister Selja said it was “extremely sad and shameful” incident. “I spoke to the Goa CM and urged him to take immediate action in the case,” she said, adding that she had sought more details from the state.

“It is a very serious matter and this should not have happened anywhere in the country. The incident is contrary to our campaign ‘Atithi Devo Bhava’ and it gives a bad image to our country throughout the world,” she said.

The ministry is planning to take up the issue of safety of tourists in a regional conference in Goa in March. (News Source: Times of India)

The child was with her mother on Arambol Beach in North Goa on Tuesday evening when two Indian men approached them.

While one person began chatting with the mother, another ventured in the water where the victim was playing and raped her,” police inspector Uttam Raut Desai said.

The child reappeared later, and complained to her mother of bruises in her private parts.

The police case accuses the two men of attempt to rape.

In a statement given to the police, the girl’s mother has claimed that one of the persons, who was chatting with her identified himself as ‘Aman’ and was a domestic tourist.

The Consul General of Russia told a news channel, “We have written to the Goa Home Ministry condemning the incident and asking them to take strictest of action.”

In December, another Russian citizen alleged that she was raped by a local politician, John Fernandes. That case turned into a major controversy, with the police mishandling the investigation.

As policemen insisted they couldn’t find Fernandes, he appeared on a private news channel for a lengthy interview (Read: Russian rape victim offered money for silence). He later surrendered to the police. The CBI is investigating this case.

The Goa government was embarrassed by the police’s investigation. The state’s Tourism Minister said Goa had turned into the country’s “rape capital”

Russian diplomats in India also wrote to the Goa government, accusing Fernandes of indirectly threatening the victim to drop the case against him.