Evoke Experiences: Connecting travellers to culture, sustainability and luxury

Interview: Bhavik Sheth, Chief Operating Officer, Evoke Experiences

Evoke Experiences, a hospitality company established in 2022, based at Ahmedabad in Gujarat, focuses on experiential glamping, eco-sensitive resorts, and destination development. The company aims to offer tourists a deep connection with local culture and sustainability. In an interview with India & You, Bhavik Sheth, Chief Operating Officer, Evoke Experiences, highlights the company’s vision, unique offerings, and expansion plans.

Can you tell us more about Evoke Experiences?

Evoke Experiences is an experiential hospitality brand based in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. We are into the space of experiential glamping sites, eco-sensitive zones and destination development. 

One of the pioneer and flagship projects of ours is Rann Utsav, which takes place at Rann of Kutch every year from November to February, where we have around 450 rooms.

We are expanding right now in terms of the forest properties, and we are coming up with a boutique property in Ayodhya as well. All these properties are eco-friendly resorts, and the material and the construction quality that we use have less impact on the carbon footprints, and these properties are not made of the cement concrete structures. So, it is a mix of tented structures and prefab structures.

We have launched a permanent property called Evoke Dholavira, which is a 44-room property and which is around 1.5 km from the excavation site, where you can find the ruins of the Harappan Civilisation. Before the Dholavira property, we were only into glamping and seasonal experiential tourism sites.

Now we are expanding with respect to adding more permanent properties. Along with Evoke Dholavira we have another property at the Statue of Unity, in Kevadia, Gujarat which has 55 rooms, and our upcoming property in Ayodhya will boast around 150 cottages. 

We have overall three permanent properties including Ayodhya and we will add another in Sasan Gir in forest by the end of July or August first week. Then, we will have four permanent properties in our portfolios this year, in addition to our seasonal ventures. 

What is your USP? 

As we are in experiential tourism segment, we work on end-to-end solutions, we do not sell rooms only. For instance, if you talk about Rann of Kutch, then the pick-up drop from the airport and railway stations, the tour guides, all meals, sightseeing, excursions, cultural activities, live demonstrations, is provided by us. We connect the guests with the local culture, local theme, we include the local cuisines into the food and we adopt the sustainability concept in each and every offering.

If you visit any of the properties, then you will feel connected to that particular place or connected to that particular destination. This is our main USP. 

Which specific segment of tourists do you primarily cater to?

Our segment is basically MICE and the FITs, and in terms of B2B, we have developed our own distribution system, wherein we have more than 10,000 travel agents registered with us, who use our login ID credentials, and everything is cloud-based, and they can directly get B2B rates from their login ID and password, and they can book any of the property by using their login credentials. In addition to that we also cater to families and luxury high-end travellers. 

Which is your biggest source market? Domestic or International? 

It is domestic right now, because of the nature of properties that we currently have. In terms of targetting inbound, we are promoting Rann of Kutch, and the upcoming property at Sasan would be an added step to that, and we are also exploring certain possibilities in the north Indian market, just to get into that space of the inbound market. 

We do cater to international tourists, but not in that quantum. Let us say for Rann of Kutch, out of the total tourists, around 2-2.5 pc would be inbound. We want to increase these numbers, and we want to create the properties and experience that can complement each other. 

What are you doing to attract international tourists?

We are tying up with Delhi-based tour operators and in Gujarat also, we have certain tour operators who do the inbound tours as well, and we also regularly participate in all the internationally recognised exhibitions and conventions as well.

From which overseas markets do you get your foreign visitors?

After the addition of Dholavira, we are seeing a great potential from Spain and Germany. Tourists from these countries seem to have a keen interest in the history and the Indian civilisation. 

In India, which city or region generates the most business for you?

So, currently with the portfolio of the property, the current region is Delhi and National Capital Region, then the Western India part, Gujarat and Mumbai suburbs, and Pune-Kolhapur market, and then the southern part, Bengaluru-Chennai, and then the few areas of West Bengal, like Kolkata.