We are publishing an interview of Ms. Priyanka Kotiya, CEO, Transhimalaya.
Please tell us about the founders
Basically I am an experienced artist for craft & portraits. Quick at modeling and texturing. Expert in transferring thought to Canvas or Paper. Additionally As an avid traveler. I have covered all the Himalaya from Leh to Manali, Shimla to Mana and Everst Region of Nepal.
I lived for 6 years in Himalaya near origin of Ganges when my husband was working there.
Alot of trekkers are being associated as Mentor for advising and making custom itinerary for TransHimalaya.in . We have Shveta Mashival from Mumbai who is the brain behind the eco-Tourism arm in Uttarakhand. We have Janaki Badrinath & Saravananan like trekkers from South. With help of such talent, we are fully ready to expand.
What is the problem you are trying to solve? Can you share with us any insights that led you to believe that this is a big enough problem?
The idea of starting treks for Indians came in to my mind when I was at Nepal this year doing a small trek of Indradaha with my 5 year old daughter. I found only Europeans there and Indians were hardly 1% of all trekker in Nepal.
When I came back from Nepal then I thaught to do something so that Indians feel it convenient to go to Nepal and do the trekking. There are so many beautiful treks in Everest region and Annapurna Circuit. Right now my focus is limited to couple of nice treks in Trans Himalaya region Only. I setup the website www.TransHimalaya.in.
We have already started to get the bookings for Everest base camp treks and Mt. Kailash Mansarovar from College and Corporate groups, Even from Europe, China.
What is the uniqueness about your Startup?
The Transhimalaya is a 1600-kilometre-long mountain range extending in a west–east direction parallel to the main Himalayan range. The highest mountain is Mt Kailash. Transhimalaya is the origin of All major himalayan rivers namely Ganges, Bramhaputra, Indus playing important role in civilisation. Named on that TransHimalaya.in is Travel Aggregator for the Less-explored territory of Ladakh, Nepal Everest Region & Bhutan with intention to expand base for other important travel regions.
We want to become the most trusted, respected and front-runner travel agency by providing sustainable business to people of Trans Himalayan Region in an Eco Friendly way so that all the money should go to the people of the region for upliftment.
We are a group of entrepreneurs, tourism professionals and trek experts having long- term successful work experience in the tourism & trekking. Transhimalaya.in specializes in cultural & natural heritage tours, hiking, trekking, mountaineering, rafting, wildlife safaris, mountain biking, and special itineraries. We provide consultation, operation and destination management in Trans Himalaya region of Ladakh, Nepal & Bhutan through high-quality professional service to our valued clients. We are committed to embracing latest, advanced travel, tour operating systems, services and tourism management practice around the world. We are competent, experienced and professional staff in every facet of tourism settings that address the travellers’ and our business partners’ need and expectations. Equipped with state of the art technology, experienced and highly professional staff, we are committed to making our guests feel at home during their stay. Full of various options, our packages enable you to enjoy your holidays as per your wish. Based on your suggestions and feedback, we continually strive to do better and make your trip more pleasant than ever.
What is the revenue model? Explain your thought process.
Right now we are working in very less premium and establishing the Brand in High Altitude trekking. Though there is huge margin available in this field and we are just charging 5% of that still we have achieved 400% profit of our total investment.
There is no plan to scale up the business as we want to grow it organically and remain profitable. We are not spending anything on advertisement. Reason being if someone wanna do Everest then anyhow he is going to do it. Through advertisement yo can’t motivate someone for trekking. So we are not like to just burn the Angel Fund/Investors Money. We are precisely targeting our clients.
Who are the consumers that you are targeting? How is this going to affect them?
Now we have come to the age where just going Shimla, Manali is not cool. Also people do not like to go Dubai,Singapore type of places when we have world class malls already in our cities. We expect the outdoor adventure space will grow exponentially. Our prime client focus is college student and corporate groups. We are in process to make it Everest Trek, Group Tour to Ladakh a frequent thing for final year students and office goers.
Some trekking spots like Everest need 2 weeks so it may affect the corporate clients so we are also entering in Uttarakhand, Leh region with small treks of 4-5 days. After all trekking activity is going to be best HR Practice for training in area of Leadership development & Team work.
What is the big picture of your startup? Will it lead to something bigger? If so, how?
See, Trekking sector of our country is very underutilized with lack of facilities. With TransHimalaya.in we are going to disturb this model and change the ecosystem completely. We can bring the International trekking standard facilities at Uttarakhand, Himachal & Leh. We can have proper rescue & heli evacuation system in place. We can promote eco-tourism in place of resort like tourism. We can contribute such that most of the money should go to people of the region for their upliftment. So TransHimalaya will grow even if slowly but will make the change.
What is the success story of your startup in your own words?
We got our first booking in a week after launch though TransHimalaya.in website was just under beta testing. It gave us immense boost to go ahead. Our operational cost is almost negligible and we have already recovered our CAPEX. We have not burned money for unnecessary promotion and growing organically. We are tasting the water and do not have shame to accept that we are not aggressive. We received initial investment offers but we refused to scale up out of proportion. We did not wanted to enter already saturated hotel, rafting, sightseeing segment. We are not going to become a loss making startup by just burning investors fund. Now we have good number of visitors footprint and regular enquiries for treks. We have identified the issue in Indian trekking sector and working on it to make it more profitable
Any other information about your startup that you would like to share with us.
We are also exploring possibilities for providing Insurance for high altitude trekking and adventure sports. Also Trekking gear is another big market to enter. Visit our website www.TransHimalaya.in for more details.
Thanks Priyanka. Best of luck!
