Auto Rickshaws Vs. Tech: Resisting Digital Adoption In Tourist Hamlets
“Why Google? Go local.”- Rickshaw driver’s punchline.
The khaki shirt worn by auto-rickshaw drivers often carry the name of a local hotel on the back. Marketing and advertising is as viral as it can get in Hampi, in a three-wheeled vehicle.
It is true that you won’t get a telephone signal in Hampi. It’s an archaeological gold mine and a World Heritage Site, no less. There is only one government controlled telephone tower and most people don’t benefit from it. That doesn’t mean that Hampi is cut-off from the larger world- every guest house, cafe, and trinket shop has WiFi (and passwords are distributed freely).
Most guest houses in Hampi have registered themselves with at least one travel aggregator, paying an average of 12% commission per booking. Guest house owners complain to no end about the sum they pay as commission to a platform, but they continue to take online bookings as an exercise of fulfilling demand.
It gets very busy during the season in Hampi. Guests who don’t book rooms in advance have resorted to unrolling sleeping bags on accommodating terraces at night. Online booking platforms are a way for tourists to ensure that they have a bed at night, and for guest houses to prepare in advance for incoming guests (although sometimes they’re relieved to have last minute cancellations).
There is only one guest house owner who refuses to go online in Hampi-
Ms. Bhuvaneshwari runs her “guest house” out of the two extra bedrooms in her house. Her rooms are always full just by walk-ins. It would be hazardous to go online she says, because she cannot fulfill demand if she attracts more attention to herself. She will only get low ratings and negative reviews for not playing the host. She speaks English with a perfect German accent- she says that’s enough marketing.
Tourists who visit Hampi must often rely on the affable nature of its inhabitants. Friendliness is a strong skill among the locals, and they practice it in at least half a dozen languages. When your phone is out of juice and you don’t know what to do, a friendly search engine materializes in the form of an auto-rickshaw driver.
Here’s Gangadhar, who earns at least INR 20,000 per month during tourist season, and not for driving his auto-rickshaw. Gangadhar waits for the days when his customers haven’t already booked a hotel room, he waits with child-like hope to see the day when a booking goes wrong, and he would be ecstatic if a hotel didn’t live up to a tourist’s expectations or better still, their room is double-booked.
A punchline that auto-rickshaw drivers in Hampi like to use is “Why Google? Go local.”
The indisputable fact is that auto-rickshaw drivers truly know Hampi inside-out and they would be able to guide every tourist to a guest house that is best suited for them. The other hard fact is that for every tourist that an auto-rickshaw driver brings, the guest house owner gives him a small sum of money as commission. That accounts for Gangadhar’s 20,000 rupees a month.
For Gangadhar, the money is a big deal. And for the guest houses, it costs them less to pay a commission to the auto-rickshaw drivers than to their online platforms. Going online is in fact, a lose-lose situation.
However, their target market uses the internet extensively. It has become the skin of their businesses, whether or not they like it. Choosing an online platform to partner with is only a cosmetic decision for search that is skin-deep.
A typical guest house in Hampi can easily fall back on walk-ins if their rooms aren’t fully booked. The entire town can be covered on foot in under 30 minutes, so it’s not that hard. What they need is a “human touch” that makes them discoverable for the right reasons. What they really need is a presence online that is as warm as their cozy little rooms. Say, for example, you would ask your auto-rickshaw driver where you would get really good masala dosa-
Ravi, who runs Archana Guest House, was the first businessman in Hampi to use a digital platform that was unlike a typical listing service. Through the NowFloats Boost app, he crafts Instagram-like posts to update his very own business site. His web page is welcoming, with a picture of the sunset as seen from his balcony, and is disarming just like the auto-rickshaw driver who would take you to him.
For Hampi, it isn’t a lack of customers that bothers its businesses, it’s that things tend to get missed out on while looking for a “guest house” online, things such as the view of the river, or the availability of rabbits to play with in the guest house. This isn’t something a search engine would voluntarily offer, unlike the auto-rickshaw driver would. But that isn’t stopping local businesses from being vocal about what they truly offer. They’ve found a digital workaround to it with the help of NowFloats.
So now, what of the auto-rickshaw drivers? If you ever meet Gangadhar, he will be the first to agree that “going digital” is here to stay. He isn’t bitter about losing his extra income, but he’s terribly sad about it. Whenever he drops off a customer at Hampi, he leaves his phone number with them and prays that they contact him over WhatsApp if they need anything.
The entire community of auto-rickshaw drivers have accepted “defeat”. It isn’t really defeat, but that’s how it is to them. Even though earning commissions off tourists was only their side-gig, it was a bigger source of income than simply driving their vehicles. Many of them continue to rely on this stream of income, and put up a steady fight against the lost cause.
However, if someone was to use them for their most valued skill, turn them into ambassadors and evangelists of a new age to come, they would proudly wear it on their back and drive tourism to its true destination, like they do with the names of hotels on their khaki shirts. If you ever met them, you wouldn’t doubt it.
