Tourism : in India a school financed by tourists

In the village of Ashrol in India, a five-hour drive from New Delhi, French tourists helped finance the construction of a canteen and sanitary facilities. a revolution in this Rajasthan village

The idea of sustainable and responsible tourism is based on a fairly simple principle, it is to do the opposite of mass tourism… and therefore have tourism that respects the environment… people… integrated into the daily life of cities or countries… and then of course tourism that shares… or the income generated by this industry is partly redistributed…

And that’s exactly what’s happening in Ashrol, India… We are 5 hours drive from New Delhi and in this village there is a spring as they say… a small tourist complex made of traditional houses, and the many French tourists who stay there do not necessarily know it but part of the money paid for their trip, around 15 euros per tourist, is used to finance humanitarian projects but also and especially of daily life.

Here Michel Salaun, one of the main French tour operators is proud to present the village school which has been modernized by the money of its customers. A modernisation which is reflected by the increase in the number of classes, the teaching of English of course but also of French and finally by the construction of a canteen and sanitary facilities. Essential elements when we know that access to education remains a problem in India.

How is the money collected managed?
Michel Salaun works with a contact on the spot who is not in the humanitarian field, he is what we call a receptive… an Indian travel agency which organizes the movements of French tourists and which knows the needs of the populations… his name is Arun Seth… and he is nothing less than a maharadja therefore particularly aware of the needs of the population of his village.

Tourists who visit for example the taj mahal they can also visit villages like Ashrol
Of course but the idea is not to make a kind of Disneyland of the humanitarian… this trip is proposed to the foreign tourists… free to them to go there or to remain at the edge of the swimming pool… but it remains nevertheless a beautiful opportunity to meet far from the traditional tourist circuits…

This action of Sustainable Tourism was candidate to the PALMES DU TOURISME DURABLE