Uttarakhand Tourism has come with a unique concept of ‘Workcation’, i.e. working + vacation. A plentiful of homestays, hotels and resorts in Uttarakhand are offering delightful and pocket-friendly workcation packages to the visitors, which can be tailor-made as per the latter’s demands. One can also throw in the benefits of pleasing weather and limitless access to outdoors, engaging in fun activities such as trekking, biking, birdwatching, stargazing, etc.
Sharing his views on workcation in Uttarakhand, Secretary, Uttarakhand Tourism, Dilip Jawalkar, says, “Workcation has lately become the trending concept of vacation. With people working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, this concept has become a much-needed escape and great opportunity to take your work on a holiday break. Uttarakhand Tourism is offering this thoughtful concept of workcation to visitors in numerous nature scenic hotels, resorts and homestays in locations such as Jim Corbett, Lansdowne, Mussoorie, Kausani, Dehradun, Nainital, Almora, among others.”
He further states that,“All the workcation spots in Uttarakhand are located at heavenly locations with panoramic view of mountains all around, providing a boundless therapy for the body, mind and soul. What makes workcation at these places unique are the essential facilities being offered, such as high-speed internet connectivity, power backup, comfort stay, medical & first aid facilities, healthy and fresh food, room service, etc. following all the important safety guidelines, norms and specific COVID protocols. Also, now all the inter-state tourists can seamlessly visit Uttarakhand without any restrictions. They just need to register themselves on the smart city portal and can enter Uttarakhand without a COVID-19 negative report”.
As the COVID-19 pandemic made work from home the new normal, moving a step forward, the Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board has done an addition to this new normal. Apart from offering scintillating workcation locations, UTDB will soon be rolling out the much thoughtful ‘Tourist Incentive Coupon’ scheme, wherein tourists visiting Uttarakhand for a minimum of 3 days will be provided with a discount of up to Rs 3000 on booking their stay in hotels/homestays.
Sharing their experience of hosting visitors on workcation, Rishi of Faraway Renz Resort in Jakh, Uttarakhand, says “Till now, we have hosted 6 different families from the national capital region and 5 from within Uttarakhand who had come with the idea of workcation. Office goers have been attending calls, while kids do their online classes. One family liked the concept so much that they extended their 1-week plan to 24nights stay. All this has led to a 44% average occupancy in August. That’s higher than what we did in May last year!”
Vicky Manral, who runs the Eco Harryman’s Homestay in Nainital’s Pawalgarh villagehas received enquiry calls from over twenty professionals. He says, “Amid the COVID pandemic, workcation has come up to be a new trend among office goers who are stuck in the work-from-home cycle and desperately want to travel to experience a change in scenario. Lately a lot of people have shown interest in booking our homestay and making our place their workstation for the next couple of months!”