Naspers-backed travel website Travel Boutique Online (TBO) has acquired strategic equity in Deyor Camps, a chain of branded camps. Through this, Deyor Camps and TBO will cross sell each other’s products.
Deyor Camps was founded by Dheeraj Jain(Redcliffe Capital), Chirag Gupta, Aakaar Gandhi and Gautam Yadav and focuses on the adventure travel market. It claims that it has sent 10,000 people on camping trips in the first quarter of its operations. It offers campsites ranging from Rs 1,400-4,000 per person per night.
Budget hotel rooms chain Deyor Rooms diversified into camping and adventure sports in February, as indicated by this Economic Times report. Deyor Rooms has raised $500,000 each in two rounds. The rounds saw participation from Jain of Redcliffe Capital and marquee individuals from the Indian hospitality industry and bankers from the UK. “We are just a few days away from launching a technology platform, which will make booking camping trips as simple as booking a hotel room, hence, structuring a highly fragmented sector,” Chirag Gupta, co-founder of Deyor Camps said in a statement.
Deyor has signed 3-year exclusive contracts with over 100 main campsites in 45 locations and additional 75 campsites over the next month. It targets to have 300 campsites by the end of the year. Each of the campsites are centred around adventure activities. For example, the company says that its campsite in Bir, Himachal Pradesh is centered around paragliding.
South-African media conglomerate Naspers-owned MIH Group owns a majority stake in Gurgaon-based TBO. The company provides flight and train tickets, hotels, bus booking services, and travel insurance for the B2B segment. It works with over 19,000 travel agents.
Competition: Although Deyor Camps claims that it is the only branded chain of campsites in India, there are still a number of other players – such as Wildrift Adventures, Kalypso Adventures, inme.in and Nirvana Nomads – offer campsites and adventure tourism.
Image credit: Flickr user Wayne under CC BY2.0
