Indian geography presents a wide variety of tourist spots. Right from the skyey heights of Everest, you can explore the caves of Aurangabad; from chilly mountains of Kashmir, you can explore the historical monuments of Rajasthan.
If you love to travel and visit various places exploring the unique ambience, touch of history and an eerie feeling of “something dangerously exciting being there”, this should sound interesting to you.
Tourist places all over India offer a great number of small business opportunities. Right from street businesses that can be explored on pavements, bi-cycles, hand-pulled carts, etc, to regionally specific products, business opportunities can be explored in wide range of fields.
In this article, we present a list of 10 entrepreneurial ideas for small businesses that can be explored on tourist places.
- Transportation Fleets
When we talk about tourist places, it is obvious that there is a great need of transport facilities. Buses, taxis, rickshaws, auto-rickshaws, and even coolies are required. Not only this, for local travel, bi-cycles, eco-friendly vehicles, etc are also in demand. Apart from connecting the tourists with bus-stands, railways stations and airports, taking them to various places of interest demand a lot of transportation facilities.
- Food corners/eateries/food outlets
When talking about food, there are lots of opportunities that can be explored by entrepreneurs. Local dishes are always on a high-demand. At the same time, opening eateries catering to North Indian crowd and South Indian crowd can also be a good idea. Tourist love to enjoy local food, but often they have an itching feeling of finding food that could make them feel at-home. Thematic eateries are always a hit. If you have visited Rishikesh, you might remember the “choti-wala” restaurant. It is a classic example of how a regular food outlet can be so popular based on a simple theme.
- Accommodation/lodges/hotels
Though, sometimes, opening hotels sounds a big business but on a smaller scale, this idea can still be explored. Providing economical and comfortable accommodation is one of the most workable idea for tourist places. A lot of auxiliary ideas can also be attached to it–a food outlet, transportation facility, tourist guides, spas, etc.
- Selling local products
Indian states provide a lot of opportunities for regional products to explore a market on various tourist places. Somewhere in Himachal Pradesh, you will find shawls, caps and other wearable items. In Rajasthan, you will like to explore various food items, items made from marble and granite, etc. In Assam, a lot of bamboo items can be explored. Food variety of Indian states offers a lot of opportunity for this idea.
- Guided tours
A tourist place is known for sight-seeing. Tourists coming from various places and even from foreign countries like to know everything about the history, relevancy, context and importance of a particular spot. Guided tours are quite feasible providing transportation, tourist guides, maps, etc. Once this business flourishes, this idea can be explored at a larger scale also.
- Internet Cafes/Ticket reservation counters
Internet facilities are always needed. Simply opening a small-shop having 5-10 numbers of computers with internet facility can work. At the same time, ticket reservation counters can also be opened. Buses, railways and air-carriers provide internet reservation options. So, the internet cafe serves multiple purposes for the tourists.
- Telephone booth/mobile recharge counters
Though almost every tourist tends to have a mobile phone, yet telephone booths are always needed. Sometimes connections are not available, sometimes it is expensive to call from a mobile phone–having a telephone booth is a good small business idea. Photostat machine, mobile recharging, mobile repair and parts–all these auxiliary ideas can also be associated with it.
- Horse-riding/camel-riding/elephant-riding
A lot of tourist places explore the traditional ways of transportation. Regional operators can explore the idea of opening a business around providing horse-riding, camel-riding, and elephant-riding facilities to the tourists.
- Book store
Regional language books, informative books about the place, photo-books, children’s books, maps, guides–all this literature can be sold in a book store. A lot of tourists like to buy books when they visit different places. Along with the book store, a gift shop can also be explored.
- Music/dance/theatrical ensemble
A tourist place sounds barren with enjoyment. And what could bring more enjoyment than music, dance and theatre. Having an ensemble providing local, regional and fusion art combination can work wonders. Moreover, this idea is not well explored but it can be tapped with good output. Associating with restaurants, food outlets, parks etc could bring better results.
