Jammu & Kashmir State Rural Livelihood Mission (JKRLM), in collaboration with OYO, on Wednesday organised a two day training workshop programme to equip the home stay owners/ Self Help Groups (SHG)s of Jammu division with the management and hospitality skills.
Divisional Commissioner Jammu, Ramesh Kumar was the Chief Guest at the inaugural ceremony of workshop, which was also attended by Mission Director, JKRLM, Indu Kanwal Chib, DDC Member, Doda, Sandeep Manhas, Additional Mission Director, JKRLM, Mridhu Slathia, Staff members and SHG members of JKRLM(UMEED), besides PRI members and Presidents of several tour and travel organisations of Jammu.
The workshop aimed to enable SHG members to learn about the processes involved in setting up home stays and to impart them skills related to homestay management and hospitality.
As many as 200 Homestay owners would be trained in the mega workshop by the Senior Trainers from OYO, Delhi. The trainee homestay owners will be trained in different spheres of Hospitality like Behavioural Skills, Marketing & Sales, Potential responsibilities, Destination Promotion Skills etc.
The Divisional Commissioner appreciated the JKRLM (UMEED) for its endeavour to promote livelihood opportunities for the SHG members in the area of tourism with the help of Oyo group. He exhorted the trainees to promote Dogra culture, Handloom & handicraft while facilitating the tourists so that Dogra culture is promoted via these home stays. Moreover, he also urged the hotel owners of Jammu to work hand in hand with the home stay owners as they will strengthen the tourism sector in inaccessible areas of Jammu division.
Speaking on the occasion, Indu Kanwal Chib, Mission Director, and Jammu Kashmir Rural Livelihoods Mission (JKRLM) said “This initiative of JKRLM will create new entrepreneurs, besides providing profitable employment to the rural women and thereby strengthening the rural economy.
It will also open up several new avenues of employment for people with different skill sets''.Elaborating further, the MD JKRLM added that the Mission has already identified homestays in 8 Districts of Jammu Division under the Tourist Village Network.
“The Mission’s collaboration with OYOs will not only generate jobs for the SHGs, but it will also improve the local economy and infrastructure” she added. She assured that the Mission will provide all the necessary support and assistance to the homestay owners.
The MD JKRLM urged upon the SHG members to take maximum benefit from the training programme and to make the homestay intervention of JKRLM a unique and successful model of entrepreneurship in J&K.
It is pertinent to mention that Homestay is a form of hospitality and logging facility where the guests get the opportunity to interact, gain knowledge and experience the lifestyle and culture of the host family as well as the local community.
The idea of the homestay program is to accommodate tourists with a local family, thus enabling the tourist to learn about local lifestyle, culture, nature etc.Director Tourism, Vivekanand Rai asserted that the women, who are interested and currently running the home stays, are fully supported by the UT Government under different schemes of the tourism department. He further assured to organise awareness camps to address the bottlenecks in the functioning of the stay homes during these awareness programmes.
In the concluding session of the day, the MD JKRLM held a question answer session with the participants to respond to their apprehensions, questions or doubts regarding the registration, functioning and administration of Home stays.Director Learning and development, OYO India, Swati Sharma conducted the daylong session.