A travel experiences company that wants people to think beyond bucket lists

When they came up with the name for their young travel experiences venture, Eesha Singh and her co-founder Harshvardhan Tanwar (aka Harsh) had been looking for something that would fit the ethos of what they were trying to deliver. 

“We didn’t consciously set out to start a slow travel company,” Eesha said, when we connected over a Zoom call last week. “But the intention was definitely there in terms of the unique and immersive experiences we were aiming for. I feel that off-beat is an overused word in tourism but we really did want to get off the beaten track of monuments and travel bucket lists.”

‘No Footprints’ felt apt – to represent the community-centric storytelling they wanted to focus on, something they knew might only draw people who wanted to engage with travel destinations in a different way. 

A Mumbai native, Harsh had always been passionate about uncovering hidden gems – small restaurants as well as slice of local life experiences  – in the city. He was the person that Eesha and other friends often turned to when they needed an idea for a Sunday afternoon activity or an evening out. And so in 2014, the duo started out in a small way with a couple of tours that were unlike anything else in the industry. One of them was an idea that Harsh had been refining for a few months. Called ‘Mumbai by Dawn’, it provides a view into different sections of the city as the wheels of commerce start turning in the early morning hours. From the dynamics of a fishing dock, the vitality of a flower market, and the hum of a textile mill, the tour allows participants to experience the industrious spirit and energy that defines Mumbai. 

Eesha says: “Mumbai by Dawn has now become almost as big as Chandni Chowk today in the tourist itinerary but it was something that Harsh struggled to sell initially because distributors and partners were unsure whether it would work –  to have people waking up at 4 or 5 am to walk the streets of the city. Now there are several operators who offer different versions of the same tour.”

Their other introductory tour was a Bollywood-focused one that threw participants into a set and got them dancing to popular numbers. Through the process, participants become aware of the unique hold that the Hindi film industry, in particular, has on the country’s pop culture.

“People get a glimpse of how obsessed we are with Bollywood. And through the experience, they catch a little bit of the bug themselves.”

No Footprints started out as a side gig for both Eesha and Harsh. She was in her early twenties then and saw it as an outlet to cover her rent in the city and supplement the income from her day job on the creative marketing team of a local magazine. Meanwhile, Harsh was working as a copywriter at an advertising agency. However, as they recognized the appeal of the travel format they had created, they started thinking of its potential as a full-time venture. 

“We realized that people like meeting other people, whether by interacting with groups who are up at the crack of dawn in the city, or through the experience of Bollywood workshops. That validated our hunch and gave us the impetus to start thinking about what more we could do.””

They both cared deeply about stories that had been ignored by the tourism industry in India – revolving around communities that had adopted the city at some point in its history and left deep imprints in its culture. 

Eesha says: “Whether it’s with the Parsis or the old fishing settlements of the Kolis, there is so much that we can highlight about specific communities. Inclusion is something that drives both of us. We were really passionate about enabling neglected voices to be heard and for these stories to be translated into rich tourism experiences.”

And so, in 2017, the two co-founders went all in with No Footprints, gradually expanding their offerings over the next few years. Apart from Mumbai by Dawn and the Bollywood-centric one, their tours in the city now include Khau Gully – an immersive street food extravaganza, and the Queer Bombay tour – a uniquely sensitive exploration of the LGBTQ+ community’s lived experiences in India.

No Footprints is now operational in Delhi where their tours again explore diverse influences in the city’s rich history. They want to leverage their nuanced storytelling approach in their newly launched city of Jaipur as well, to bring out overlooked community experiences. 

They are currently a small but efficient team of about 15 split across operational, product and marketing roles. The others on the team are the freelance tour leaders of whom there are now around 20 in Mumbai, 13 in Delhi, and new candidates actively being recruited for the Jaipur tours. 

The tour leaders are integral to delivering the No Footprints experience, Eesha said. Those who are recruited go through a robust three month training program that covers various case studies and scenarios. Experience in tourism is not a requirement. 

Eesha says: “We look for creative people who have the bandwidth to handle this at some level. We have entrepreneurs, filmmakers, journalists, home chefs, PhD students and others leading our tours. The one thing that binds them is how driven they are by the joy of discovering their city.  We can train them on the rest – communication, content, mindset…” 

Read on for more from Eesha on how they put experiences together as a team, the values that they are all aligned on, and the challenges and rewards of running a conscious experiential travel company…

Curating the Experiences of No Footprints 

It’s very organic. There’s no rigid process but a lot of it evolves from the team getting together to discuss possibilities. We have a few ideas even before we enter a city, which is why we are there in the first place. 

We start with discussing the things that the team loves about the destination. We ask ourselves: what are the conversations that matter to a destination and how can we showcase these? And then ideas start popping out and pathways automatically start emerging. I think that broadly sums up the process involved in curating experiences. 

Authenticity, Flexibility and Making Room for Conversations

We really do want to accommodate diverse points of view and preferences. Making our tour leaders feel authentic is very important to us. At the same time, we think it’s important for them to respond to different points of view with respect. So, we want to ensure there is room for talking as well as listening during the tours. We really underestimate the listening part in tourism – not just listening to words, but paying attention to body language and other cues that allow us to adapt as needed. 

For example, colonialism and its aftermath often come up during our tours. And if you have someone from the UK, more often than not, they may respond to this with something self-deprecating. But it doesn’t become a more open conversation unless we can acknowledge their discomfort and jump in with more context and nuance. Then suddenly that whole topic is liberated from the discomfort around tackling it. 

We are currently crafting a tour in Jaipur on climate adaptability and cuisine modifications stemming from it. There are other tours that are purely meant to address people’s bucket lists. So we do want to cater to diverse travel goals and preferences. If a client feels a particular tour or narrative is not for them, then there are other offerings for them. And if they feel they would rather go with another tour company that’s more aligned with their worldview, that’s fine also. 

Eesha’s Favorite Tours

The ones at the top of my list are about the conversations that are not happening in Indian tourism. I may be biased but I think we’ve managed to develop these conversations into super fun experiences. We have the Queer Tour in Mumbai that really is the first of its kind. It not only showcases the queer lived experience in the country but is out to dismantle the belief that queerness is some kind of Western import. The idea is to provide a glimpse into the queer history of India and present stories through the lens of the community. We launched this tour in early 2019 when this was largely a sidelined conversation. But luckily, Netflix and Amazon have played a role in mainstreaming it. It’s a tour that changes with each new tour leader, allowing them to deliver their own take on how the city has been responding to queerness. The concept of coming out in India is complex, for instance. It could mean leaving your hometown; telling one group of people in a certain way and another in a different way. It’s a journey rather than a singular event. It’s a great way for anybody to develop a better understanding that will help them challenge the normative. 

My other favorite tour in Delhi is the Great Indian Wedding Tour. The goal here is to make participants Indian wedding ready. I haven’t met anybody who doesn’t emerge from that tour, grinning from ear to ear. The content is immersive and hilarious at the same time. It also brings together two of our national obsessions – Bollywood and weddings. There are 45 minutes or so spent on a workshop where they can practice their Bollywood dance moves and be ready to hit the dance floor at the function. There is an Indian astrology reading that has everyone in splits, but that can be intense as well. They also get to experience the skill of karigars (artisans) in creating stunning Indian textiles. And they get to try their hand at making their own pocket squares with their names woven in them. 

In Jaipur, apart from the climate tour, I really enjoy the flower tour. Jaipur is called Chhota Kashi due to its density of temples. It’s also a popular wedding destination. So flowers are everywhere here and serve as a visual metaphor for this ‘Pink City’. We zero in on the problem of temple flower waste during the tour and connect with some very cool designers who convert this waste into textiles. And this is part of a very fun workshop. 

What Keeps the Founders Up at Night

You can have the most creative idea but the proof is in implementation in this industry, as in many others. Apart from the marketing effort, this involves detailed logistics and time. Often we have creative ideas that we are 100% invested in at first, but that drops to 50% when we start discussing implementation. We have to remind the team that tourism is about experiencing a place through immersive activities. It can’t just be a lecture. 

The uphill work with any idea lies in mobilizing others – vendor partners, community members – to join you in co-creating it. We have to convince them of the storytelling and income potential through it. To help them see this as an exciting opportunity is a challenge at the implementation level, albeit a rewarding one. 

At the marketing level too, we have to sell distribution partners on our ideas when they are used to more standard itineraries. For a small travel business and creative implementer, the marketing challenge is very real. We’re very reliant on big distribution channels to help our ideas see the light of day. Luckily, many of them have proven to be wonderful partners in this respect. 

The effort involved in direct marketing is significant given that the world still believes that people should hit the standard monuments when they come to a city. We have to be able to convince people that they can do something more interesting in the limited time that they have. 

Lastly, I am concerned about keeping good people on the team engaged and happy, the freelancers particularly. Every time we come up with a new tour, I worry about whether we can sell it. Will we be able to give work to people we have asked to join us to lead it? We have been able to retain so many freelancers primarily because of our approach. But still it’s something that I think about quite a lot.  

Making a Splash With Celebrity Guests

We have had some wonderful headlines billing us as the celebrity tour guides. As exaggerated as some of these were, I can’t say we mind it. It’s amazing from a publicity perspective. Besides Zendaya and Tom Holland, we have had Nigella Lawson and Trevor Noah on our tours. Our partners have been comfortable with trusting us with high profile guests for a long time now. We take care of these guests in the same way that we take care of anybody on any of our tours – with the same passion and with the right people to lead them. 

Aiming Higher as a Responsible Travel Company

I’ve been invited to participate in sustainability forums and haven’t declined those opportunities. We’ve also been cited in various publications as a responsible tour operator. Recently, one of our favorite writers on sustainability – JoAnna Haugen – gave us a shoutout on social media. That’s gratifying and goes to show we are doing something right. Still, I feel there is definitely room to do more. There are players in tourism who are doing amazing work in this space. I feel a little reluctant to blow my horn about this because I feel this is still an area of improvement for us. 

The No Footprints Way Forward

When we started out, this felt like a creative platform for our brand of travel storytelling and that was my primary motivation. Now that I’m older and see the business growing, I also feel like we are contributing to piecing together the puzzle of India through tourism. I feel really good that it’s all adding up to learning more about the country and its many destinations. If I weren’t from India, I would definitely have put this country at the top of my bucket list. I think we’re just so fascinating as a country and being able to share this with visitors is my greatest joy. 

Over the next few months, we plan to consolidate our efforts across the three cities that we are now active in. We would like to focus on them in the near term. But maybe in a year or two, we can start exploring another city and start work there. 

For more information on No Footprints and their tours, visit https://www.nfpexplore.com/