HBI Staff | Mumbai 
RARE India, which completes 20 years of operations this year, noted as the largest community of boutique owner run hotels and experiences, with a singular focus on promoting community inclusive, planet sensitive travel in the Indian subcontinent, will host BRIDGES 2024 from 4th to 6th April at The Roseate, New Delhi.
The event is promoted as a change makers’ collective and is a powerful showcase of individual hoteliers, small indigenous hospitality groups, destinations and experiences from the subcontinent that are an example of tourism as a ‘force for good.’ BRIDGES aims to intensify the inevitable switch towards responsible tourism, to rethink itineraries, build destination stories and promote community-focused and planet-sensitive tourism.
Shoba Rudra, Founder, RARE India, said “Through BRIDGES we aim to be that singular experiential event that can inspire global collaborators to understand Responsible Tourism from the perspective of the sub-continent through a curated list of storytellers, owner-run hotels, and experiences.”
Close to 45 owner-run, small hotels from the RARE Community as well as 6 hotels as Friends of RARE will represent this ideology at the event and share their incredible stories with delegates – stories woven around the destination, its people, heritage, and culture.
The event will also feature a series of Catalyst Talks, workshops and conversation circles by RARE partners like Belinda Wright, Gopinath Parayil and Antara Phookan. In a bid to reach out to a global audience of change makers, some of the conversations can be accessed online as well.
The second edition of the RARE Conscious Travel Awards will also be held on 5th April as part of BRIDGES. These awards celebrate the RARE hotels and experiences and felicitate small, boutique and owner run hotels who have put all their efforts to establish a destination on the traveller’s map while remaining community sensitive and planet inclusive.
As a first-of-its-kind initiative in the travel events space in India, BRIDGES by RARE is aspiring to be a Carbon Neutral Event, as verified by www.nettzero.world. RARE India is committed to strengthening its sustainability journey through this event by quantifying every aspect of its carbon footprint for Scope 1, Scope 2 and partial Scope 3 emissions. BRIDGES 2024 is probably one of India’s first travel events to undertake a realistic inventory of Greenhouse Gas emissions as per globally instituted norms while also taking steps towards mitigation and offsets through internationally validated credits. The process of calculation, verification and offsetting will be managed by NettZero Environmental Advisory Technologies – a leader in the field of sustainability management.
Rudra added, “As an industry we have to become serious about responsible tourism, and our collaboration with NettZero is a small step towards understanding how and authentication of this intention. Enough talk! Time for action.”
