livingstone stays- Mechanical engineer Chirag Bansal has consistently been a travel enthusiast. During his two-and-a-half-year stint as product manager at data and analysis platform Trefis, 26-year-old Chirag never missed an opportunity to travel. “My working environment was truly adaptable. I left for the mountains each time I got a chance and worked from that point,” he includes. After his CAT tests in December 2017, Chirag left to investigate Chitkul, a peaceful town in Himachal Pradesh, close to the Indo-China border.
After a ton of research and discussions, Chirag persuaded his sister, Nidhi Bansal (29) to go along with him in this endeavor. In March 2018, they rented a spot in Chitkul. The kin teamed up with a gathering of craftsmen, Delhi Street Art, to begin their task.
“We supported their outing and they painted spray painting over the town and our property. We were open for voyagers by April 2018,” Chirag says. What began as an insignificant purposeful venture, is currently an undeniable experiential-living business.
LivingStone Stays works together with land owners and gets them into a showcasing agreement to remodel these spaces, brand them, and solely advertise them on vacation booking stages, for example, Airbnb, MakeMyTrip, Booking.com, and Agoda. From starting their endeavor at 12,000 feet in Chitkul, the startup has extended to Karjat, Maharashtra. Inside a year, the team has figured out how to bring 13 properties under their umbrella.
With assistance from their family, Chirag and Nidhi put Rs 10 lakh into their first property.
Be that as it may, this was not the sort of return Chirag was anticipating. He needed to assemble a versatile business. With further statistical surveying, the team understood that there were torment focuses that should have been settled.
Chandigarh-based LivingStone is planning to settle that problem.Since renting properties didn’t appear to be truly versatile, Chirag and Nidhi concocted the arrangement where they would get into contracts with the land owners. Their second remain in Karjat was the primary such property, which they turned out in December 2018. Chirag, who is as of now seeking after a MBA from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai, says he won’t have any significant bearing for school positions after his graduation in 2020. He would proceed with his endeavor full time. His sister and colleague, Nidhi, has finished her MTech from IIT-Delhi and right now fills in as a senior advisor at CRISIL.
LivingStone Stays Collaboration Model
LivingStone contacts land owners for coordinated efforts. They regularly get references from existing land owners too. “We add experiential components to the property to improve our visitors’ encounters,” Chirag says. The startup at that point does a photograph shoot of the property before posting on booking stages.
There are no forthright expenses for land owners. Be that as it may, for each reserving, LivingStone gets around 20 to 30 percent commission. Installment is moved to the land owner after LivingStone deducts its margin.
The Way Ahead
As per IBEF, the Indian travel and the travel industry division’s commitment to the nation’s GDP is relied upon to increment from $234.03 billion out of 2017 to $492.21 billion out of 2028. Comprehensively, LivingStone contends with all movement new companies, including MakeMyTrip and Cleartrip. The startup likewise straightforwardly contends with other visitor remains, for example, Pahadi House, Grassroutes, Eclogin, India Untravelled, Vista Rooms, and V Resorts.
Going ahead, LivingStone is planning to raise investments of up to Rs 7 crore to reach its goal of 200 properties within a year.
