TravTalk India Online Magazine
RARE India recently launched three initiatives, namely RATAN, RAIN and Beautiful Planet, in a bid to grow the community of environmentally conscious people and travel enthusiasts who believe in sustainable living. Shoba Mohan, Founder, RARE India, shares details…
Nisha Verma
RARE Travel Agency Network (RATAN) and RARE Influencer Network (RAIN) are directed towards inviting partnerships from travel agents as well as independent influencers to jointly promote conscious luxury travel. Speaking on the same, Shoba Mohan says, “RATAN is meant to create a very focused group of tour operators & travel agents, to train them on how to use sustainability in promoting luxury travel and experiences. We need tour operators who believe in RARE. We need tour operators who go the extra mile to understand what it actually means and implement their promotions and marketing skills to strongly promote a hotel, which is a part of RARE India or a part of the responsible tourism society of India. They should be people who follow certain guidelines and principles where the integrity of the destination or the community is impacted positively. One should be able to explain why a sustainable luxury hotel is premium and exclusive, that it ensues a certain value to it.”
Adding that she has been thinking about RATAN as a concept for a long time, Mohan says, “We do need people to engage with us, to believe in what we are doing, trying to understand it better, and use it in their promotions. We want to create a tribe or network. This concept has been on the cards for a very long time, and the lockdown has given us time to do this.”
RAIN engages people who want to be associated with RARE. “There are a lot of people on social media who like what we do and the ethos of RARE. They feel as part of that tribe and use their offices to influence people to take the idea of sustainable luxury through the community of RARE far and wide in the subcontinent. The idea to engage such people came when on social media, so many people expressed interest in working with us because they genuinely love what we do and want to do it. I think it was a great opportunity to pull them in and create a business opportunity for all of them sitting wherever they are.”
Talking about Beautiful Planet, Mohan shares that the concept is close to her heart and “it would focus on doing live stories from young people, who are doing fantastic work in terms of travel, climate change, sustainability and want to make a difference,” she mentions. She further adds, “We are constantly picking up ideas to engage people to get them excited about promoting not only RARE, but we are also trying to create a change in mindset. We are trying to encourage people to start thinking about sustainability now in the COVID world, instead of setting it aside.” Today, RAIN is in 10-12 cities, while RATAN is in 40 cities across India. “Our aim is to have them in over 100 Tier-II cities in the country,” says Mohan.
Talking about the criteria behind RATAN, she adds, “They should have the ability to promote to a network of travel agents around them; they should have a dedicated person from the company to attend trainings so they can understand RARE; and finally the inclination to promote hotels not just as a business idea but also to transform it.”
