ISONAVA
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| Indian Society Of Natural Volunteers | |
| Founder(s) | S.N.Gupta & J.P. Narayan |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1984 |
| Headquarters | New Delhi, India |
| Key people | S.N.Gupta, co-founder and co-chair J.P.Narayan, co-founder and co-chair Ulka Das, CEO |
| Area served | India |
| Focus | Eco-tourism, Tourism Development, Protecting Nature |
| Employees | 4280 |
| Website | www.easydestination.net |
Indian Society Of Natural Volunteers (ISONAVA) is a voluntary organization which helps foreign tourists in India and also fight to save nature. The Organization was formed in 1984 with 8 members, now this organization has over 4000 members across India. ISONAVA has published more than 70 magazines and has sold more than 1 million copies. ISONAVA also distributes free travel guides to foreign tourists in India.
Contents |
[edit] History
In the beginning of 80's Co founder of organization S.N. Gupta used to write articles on his experiences of Garhwal region of Uttaranchal State of India. He used to wrote articles for the newspaper Navbharat Times Sunday's Edition. He used to live with the co founder of organization JP Narayan. They were very good friends and had travelled across India together. In their trips across India they met hundreds of foreign tourists while travelling and get to know problemes they faces while travelling India. Inspired by this both decided to make an organization to protect Nature and boost Indian Tourism by helping foreign tourists in India.
Both of them used to work for Council Of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) office Central Electronics Engineering Institute (CEERI) Delhi's branch office. When their colleagues heard this idea six of them decided to join the organization. This way ISONAVA started in the year 1984.
In the early days they used to go every house and ask them to protect Nature. Impressed by their Idea and organization by the start of 1985 ISONAVA members increased from 8 to 50. In the upcoming years members increased from 50 to 300.
In 1987 they decided to give foreign tourists in Delhi a free guide to travel Delhi, which included good places to eat, places to stay Bus No to reach various places etc. First they used to write guides on ordinary papers. They used to write guides in 4 languages English, Spanish, French and Italian. They used to write guides till late in the night. All meetings of ISONAVA used to be held either at CEERI or one of the member Rajendra Singh Minhas who was a sports teacher in a School used to arrange classroom for weekends for meetings.
In 1988 ISONAVA took a step further by publishing their very first magazine ISONAVA. Organization had very hard time to arrange funds for magazine, they sold some of their slides to Natural Meuseum of Delhi to arrange funds to print magazine. They published 5000 copies of their first magazine. The very first print was framed and still hanging on the wall of their office.
By the start of 90's ISONAVA were helping foreign tourists in getting a place to stay, good food to eat, some members used to provide foreign tourists of low budget place to stay at their own house. In 1996 efforts of ISONAVA was appreciated by Tourism Department of India by Honouring them with Tourism award. By the year 2000 ISONAVA had over 2000 members.
[edit] EasyDestination
The Idea of making a travel guide website of India was first proposed on 15 Anniversary of ISONAVA in year 1999. At that time most of the members were not interest in this idea. It took 3 years to convince members and finally ISONAVA's travel website EasyDestination.net was launched in January 2003. But it was only after 2005 Easydestination got regular visitors. Website slowly but started to become popular but website was criticised for lack of quality element and only the reputation of ISONAVA was carried the website. EasyDestination was recognised by Tourism Department Of India in 2005 which was highly criticised by other travel websites. It was in the year 2006 when lots of problems in website were fixed and later that year it was also recognised by World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). In 2007 Easy Destination came in full control of Gupta family and by the end of year it achieved 1 million visitors per month according to web traffic rankings.
[edit] Magazines
First magazine ISONAVA published was named ISONAVA which focused on saving Nature and Historical Monuments of India. Magazine focused how careless tourists had ruined Valley Of Flowers in Himalayas. Only 5000 copies were published due to lack of funds. The impact of this magazine was that Government of India banned tourists in Valley of Flowers. ISONAVA published travel guides for 40 major Indian cities which included complete history of cities, places to see in city, hotels etc. ISONAVA also published international editions.
[edit] Criticism
ISONAVA has often been criticised for having double standards when they took part in movement to ban tourists from Valley Of Flowers wvwn when Tourism Department Offered neutral way good for both environment and Tourism which was seen as more of ISONAVA's publicity stunt and less for seek of country. Later ISONAVA's claims of Environment first than Nature was also questioned when they helped government of Uttar Pradesh in Himalayan Tourism Development Plan which was criticised because more tourists in the region will ruined natural beauty of the placees, later involvement of ISONAVA in government decision to chop forest to build hotels and restaurants brought them in firing line.
ISONAVA's website EasyDestination was also criticised for having very poor standards and for lack of quality elements, ISONAVA was also accused for using website for commercial use to make money. Website's recognition by tourism department of India was also seen as political influence of ISONAVA. Tourism department was also criticised on the issue. ISONAVA also faced lots of internal criticism for control of Gupta family over website.
