SOCIAL ENTERPRISES IN THE TOURISM INDUSTRY: TUKTUK RENTAL
So we told you already the story of our trip in Sri Lanka, where we did more than 1000km in 7 days with a tuktuk (if not, check it out here). We left Colombo, the capital city, headed to Kandy, passing through the jungle and getting lost several times, all the way to Talalla South, driving up to 2300m where tea plantations are located, and finally seeing the sea at the end of the street with monkeys jumping over trees along the road. But read more here if you are interested in our route.
Now we want to tell you another story, Abe´s story.
Abe was our blue tuk tuk, and we rented it from TukTuk Rental, a company based out of Colombo. Abe was great the whole time, it never let us down throughout our crazy route. But we are not here to describe the specs of this vehicle, rather we want to tell the story of the company and where Abe comes from.
Their mission is “Travel like a local. Support Locals”. Their concept is as follows: to let westerns adventure like locals throughout the island, they source the vehicles from not so well-off Sri Lankan families and sub rent them to travellers. In this brilliant process, Srilankan families have the possibilities to round up their income by offering their unused tuktuk. As such, tuk tuk rentals classifies as a social enterprise: a company with a primary social purpose – “support locals” – but with a steady income stream to fund this purpose.
Not only are the buddies at Tuktuk Rental inspirational by the way they do business, but also by the fact they measure their impact: Until today have generated more than 75k dollars for 55 local tuktuk owners and their families.
TukTuk Rental should serve us as an inspiration of how tourism and doing good – measurably – can be combined.
Show some love to these social entrepreneurs by following them on Instagram and contacting them in case you decide to visit this wonderful country!
