Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board has launched an online booking portal for booking homestays in the hill state. Bookings for homestays in Uttarakhand can now be made through www.uttarastays.com. This is probably the first such initiative by any state tourism department where a state-sponsored homestay booking portal has been launched.

The homestay owners can integrate their homestays on the platform by providing information about the property and signing an agreement for the same. The homestay owners will not be required to pay any integration charges or platform fees or share a percentage of their revenue with Uttarakhand Tourism.

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The portal shall provide authentic information about Homestays to the general public and provide a seamless mechanism to book the homestays online. The users can also rate the Homestays on the platform through which the Homestays will get real-time feedback on their services and prompt them to improve the services.

Uttarakhand Tourism has close to 5,000 Homestays registered with the Department. Uttarakhand Tourism said it committed to the promotion of the local economy through various tourism-related activities and this initiative is another step towards handholding of the Homestay owners by providing an online platform without any charges to them.

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This initiative is an effort to provide an online medium for small Homestay owners for bookings. Uttarakhand Tourism Department is providing subsidies under the Deendayal Upadhyay Homestay Scheme to develop homestays in the region. Additionally, training is also being provided to homestay owners in various skills and services to enhance their customer service skills. With this online portal, another dimension has been added by the tourism department to promote Homestays.

Shri Sachin Kurve, Secretary Tourism/CEO, UTDB mentioned that this three-pronged strategy involving government support through subsidy in creating Homestay infrastructure, providing skill base training to homestay owners and providing marketing support through online portal shall prove to be a milestone in establishing a robust Homestay network in the state. He further stated that all homestay owners are welcome to get their Homestay registered on the portal.

The future plan involves linking Homestays with wellness centres in respective areas so that the tourists can avail benefits of the services of wellness centres like Yoga, Naturopathy, Panch Karma, Ayurvedic Massages etc.