Backpacking Hostels in India
Vedanta Wake Up! – Founding an amazing venture!
Rishabh Gupta and Aadil Muscatwala have been childhood friends and share a deep passion for traveling
While the seeds of introducing organised hostelling in India were sown during a trip to Australia in 2009, Vedanta Wake up! was founded in 2011
What started out as a passion project to extend their love for backpacking to the Indian traveller, the project has evolved into a venture with clear visibility of scale, non linear growth and profitability
With the execution of the scale up plan of adding an inventory of over 11,000 beds, Vedanta Wake up! is poised to become one of the largest hostelling brands across the world
Vedanta Wake up!
A scalable business model that has redefined and disrupted the Indian hospitality sector by creating a niche that marries affordabality with standardisation of product & service
Overview - Vedanta Wake up!
Vedanta Wake up! hostels were conceptualized in 2011 with the vision of creating a safe and unique environment for guests to meet each other, get to know about each other, share travel advice, discover friendships and most importantly to have an experience whereby they are able to better connect to the city they are visiting through the bonds they have developed with those who were once complete strangers
Overview – Aggregation, branding & operation of existing small budget hotels through long term leases
Business Model – The business model is to aggregate existing unbranded hotels through long term leases and then re-brand, refurbish and operate these properties. Blanket Hospitality increases marketing, distribution and service levels of unbranded, under utilized and under marketed hotels.
Target Market – No restriction on target markets. The vision is to be a pan India player with the potential of extending the concept to other countries as well which have a fragmented hotel supply
Status Quo – The business currently operates 14 properties (~300 existing rooms)
Growth Plan – Scale the business to ~175 operating properties (~5,000 rooms) by the year 2022
Currently operational in 14 cities in the states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu & Karnataka
Typical Vedanta Wake up! Property
- Private Rooms (Double Rooms, Organic Bamboo Huts, Tents, Indian Cots)
- Dorm Rooms of 4 – 8 beds each
- Dry kitchen serving breakfast and light snacks
- Travel Desk + Round the clock reception
- Common lounge consisting of seating areas with big screen TV, book exchange, board games, musical instruments & map of the local attractions
- Outdoor areas such as gardens and terraces
Currently operational in 14 cities in the states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu & Karnataka
