Full Name Gouthami | Nationality Indian | |
Born 1969 Tamil Nadu Known for Rural management and tourism Notable work "Responsible Tourism" through founding of "Travel Another India" | ||
Gouthami (born 1969), is an entrepreneur from Tamil Nadu, India, who was prompted by her long years of working with NGOs in rural communities in many regions of the country to establish the "Travel Another India" in 2009 as a travel organization to bridge the rural-urban divide to bring the rural community to participate in providing travel facilities to tourists; this has helped the rural participants to improve their economic conditions through business opportunities.
Gouthami is also recipient of the Cartier Women's Initiative Award, an annual award given to women entrepreneurs from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America. The award carried a cash reward of $20,000.
Biography
Gouthami from Chennai, Tamil Nadu studied at the Institute of Rural Management, Anand, Gujarat, and obtained a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree in rural management in 1991. She then pursued her career with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in project management. She worked for NGOs: such as Actionaid; Christian Aid on disaster management; worked in East Timor for six months during 2002; with Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan (KMVS) in 2005 interacting with rural people by setting up the Shaam-e-Sarhad Rural Resort in Hodka village in Kutch; in the later part of 2005 worked with rural community in Hodka village under a project titled "Endogenous Tourism Project" (a project for sustainable rural development) in Kutch, a project sponsored by the Ministry of Tourism and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) till 2007 in 36 Indian villages with crafts associated with tourism; and then as a consultant with UNDP. Then, in 2008, based on the expertise she had acquired in tourism projects related to rural development she evolved a plan to pursue tourism development as a rural concept and interacted with rural community for their reaction to create rural infrastructure for her "Responsible Tourism" - a tourism development plan. Then, in April 2009 she established the "Travel Another India" (TAI) venture with a seed money of Rs 100,000 in association with Vinay Raj and Meera Menon to help village communities to create tourist infrastructure to facilitate tourist to rediscover the country. Through TAI, the rural community has provided infrastructure facilities in Channapatna and Banavasi by the Village Tourism Development Committee in Karnataka, Leh and Ladakh, Hodka and Pranpur near Chanderi in (Madhya Pradesh), Turtle Bay Resort near Udupi, the Hermitage Guest House near Belgaum, Ecosphere in Spiti and Arco Iris in Goa. As the CEO of TAI, Gouthami has also aimed to provide "barrier-free" (wheel-chair friendly) access for disabled persons and senior citizens at several tourist centers with which she is associated.
Gouthami has also published an article titled Climate change and responsible tourism: Travel Another India- The Village Experience as a chapter in the book Meeting the Challenges of Climate Change to Tourism: Case Studies of Best Practice (2014).