funstay

In India when we plan a vacation we always book a hotel to stay at, because that is the conventional way to do it. But now with the new generation which is smitten by travelling the world, alternate accommodation has come up in the form of home stays and vacation rentals. This trend is very popular in the west and slowly and gradually is it finding its way into India as well. This is one startup that aims to a catalyst for this phenomenon.

THE IDEA



Bangalore-based Funstay is an online platform that provides alternate accommodation options to travelers in the form of house guests on similar lines as Airbnb. It’s a marketplace which connects travelers and alternate stay owners through a secure and intelligent platform using machine learning and AI. This is a win win situation where the tourists or travelers get a budget and exciting place to stay at and the home owners can make some extra cash as well. Funstay is here to provide people with creative places to stay at. It bridges the gap between tourists and home owners. They have exclusive, exotic, and fully verified rentals registered with them making the sector more organized and immediately accessible to tourist.


MEET THE MAKER



Name of the founders: NitinAgrawal, ParagRane, AnuragAgrawal, AbhishekAgrawal, Mahim Mehta

Abhishek: He has been a student at IIITB and IIMB. After his education he has an experience of 10 years in Program management and Finance.
Anurag: He has an LLM degree along with an experince of 8 years in Legal & Operation.
Nitin:Having studies at  Strathclyde B-School, he went on to work at Glasgow for 7 years in Strategy & IT
Parag: Having studies at  Strathclyde B-School, he went on to work at Glasgow for 7 years in
Data analytics.
Mahim : He is a graduate from XIMB with a 5 year experience in Marketing & Sales Strategic Planner.

USP



They provide exciting and creative accommodation at affordable prices. This gives a chance to the tourist to immerse in the local culture and truly relish the experience. And to be safe their listings are verified and they ensure there must be good quality of services. Their major area of focus is experience, they do everything keeping this in mind. Also they ensure safety of travelers and host.


TARGET MARKET



Their target segment is a little different from the general tourist crowd, who prefer the conventional ways. Their end user are those who are little bit experimental and enthusiastic and want to enjoy real sense of travelling. These are the people who would not mind staying with the locals and getting to know them. These are people who are  flexible and want to have an adventure. This mostly comprises our young generation for now, which will hopefully catch on.

PLAN OF ACTION



They are currently present in 10 states of India with the number of listings increasing by the day.  Crunching numbers, they have around 1600+ listings on their portal with 6000 rooms of inventory. They aspire to give maximum number of options to the tourist along with good quality service. Apart from just providing accommodation, they want to go the extra mine. They hope to educate and train home owners to provide better service using internet which will again help Digital India Campaign.
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