Judging India in Jaipur

It's to the north west of the country, in Rajasthan, Jaipur is the capital - a large city. Rajasthan was the last state to agree to be part of India.

 

It is the land of kings. It's part of the desert, and this wealthy part of India delivers one final resounding cultural insight to the country for my trip here. As I head from Delhi on a local bus that takes 6 hours stopping at every town along that way I see the change from central India to Rajasthan. More fields of corn, yellow fields being harvested by women in incredibly bright saris of multiple colours, carrying towers of gatherings a-top their heads. A few horse and cart help transport the harvest and then there’s the rare tractor. I've been transported back in time.

A highway is being built between Delhi and Jaipur, slicing through the middle of towns, cutting buildings in half as locals continue to try to operate businesses and homes that have been part-demolished. Pavements are made of the demolished rubble as kids and shoppers clamber their way along the road. The bus jaunts over and aside large potholes - it's a construction site on a massive scale.

I arrive in Jaipur and the atmosphere is instantly different to Delhi, the architecture more unique and original, it feels like there is a real heritage here that belongs to Rajasthan, my hotel - Umaid Bhawan Heritage Hotel - reflects the style of palaces in the region: it's ornate, slightly extravagant, visually rich.

The Pink City: painted to hide the cheap materials used to construct the inner walls. The heat of the day sets in early as I walk to the palace. The streets are lined with food markets that open early, and local shops begin to set up for the day. I stop at a temple and enter a conversation with the man on the door.

He asks me about Britain, I ask him about Jaipur, we exchange stories. Things are changing fast and it's having a cultural and social impact that is challenging and full of fear and strife. The recent rape cases in India purely highlighted the huge issues the country faces. Families that killed their first born, if a girl, force the country to now pay the price. There are less females, more males and therefore not enough to go around. Men cannot find wives and this is a social situation they don't wish to face - to be an unmarryable man! If they haven't found a partner by their mid-twenties sexual rage sets in. These men are virgins, now becoming desperate like a dog on heat. Men are now paying dowries instead of the girl’s family. Men are going on search for women from the city to the depths of the countryside. And women are taking advantage of this - marrying and taking all valuables and disappearing, then remarrying.

 

If this is how it is for the straight set what about gay Indians. Where does it leave them in social acceptance? 

India is still socially conscious. You must marry someone of a similar cultural standing. Women are still second rate and money and riches still mean a lot.

As I tour the city and visit the palaces and forts surrounding Jaipur you see much of the immense wealth the state has had. The investment in huge constructions that bare the mark of quality together with technical focus like water delivery, plumbing and toilets. This made me wish I had visited the more rural and smaller cities like Udaipur and beyond - the tales travellers had told me drew my imagination to the history and richness of the region. 

I explored the forts and palaces like a kid; running up and down staircases, winding in and out of alleyways and trying to get the most from my visits - I clicked away on my Cannon trying to get used to manual photos! 

I stopped by Monkey Temple, spending nearly 3 hours just watching the monkeys jump and dive into the algae filled water holes. It was kind of magical - but these were much less hassle than the people and kids below who just continually demanded money or items to sell to me. 10 days into my trip I had enough of this. I succumbed to a life beyond lone travel - I could only wish to be with a travel companion, not just to share this moment with but to throw them into the gauntlet to deal with these tourist touts so I could just hide.

I wanted to go home now! And it was certainly time to go back to the hotel with a pit stop to buy my final goods - some silk neck scarves and a final silk bed spread. With that...I was done.

I left early on the Thursday morning, back to Kolkata. I grabbed my things and headed home - dear home...

TOP TIP – when booking a coach make sure it is authenticated. Unfortunately I was sold a fraudulent ticket and the ‘said’ coach did not turn up. Do your best to use the local Tourist Information Centres, these are commercial, so not like Europe or USA where they are run by the local government, but at least there is more guarantee for legitimacy. Trying to finally get a bus to Jaipur was hard work and I ended up on a local public bus service…it should only have taken about 3 hours without stops to any other destination.

Open Letter - Who is Ryan C Haynes

I thought I would write an open letter - since I am looking for work.

So who is Ryan C Haynes?

Dear reader,

I have had a wide-varied career in PR, communications and content development having started my career working in radio as deputy editor of the local website and assistant producer for the daytime radio programmes. During the past 15 years I have built on this experience; working for the leading national radio station for its live output and online content updates, servicing large consumer brands engaging with social media tools, creating copy and content for the media, leading PR communications campaigns, and managing a successful B2B marketing content strategy for a global technology company.

As Marketing & Communications Manager I was responsible for the delivery of all communications, content, PR and events managing an internal team of five personnel and working with multiple contractors and agencies to meet the company’s objectives. As direct manager, I was also responsible for my team members’ personal development, training and personal well-being to ensure they were continually positively committed to their role and delivering high quality work.

I reported to the Management Team and Board of Directors whereby I presented monthly results of all marketing campaigns including interaction with content and web platforms, analyzing how to optimise the performance of these channels through regional support and partnerships. By harnessing the right content the team was able to leverage conversations with the target audience.

I redeveloped the website to become a central hub for hotel booking strategies by creating an Educational Resource hosting the company blog, social media, whitepapers, research papers and reports and regular news releases. On launching this new portal, with a redesigned simple user-interface, I immediately achieved 40% increase in web visits, as a result of optimized SEO data and a more organized web sitemap, and further increased the duration of visits and number of pages visited by 100%. Indicating our audiences’ thirst for information, the commercial result was a steady increase of web sales enquiries of over 20%.

I supported the central educational strategy with regional communications strategies, by developing content relevant to the regions and territories we were targeting. For example we developed a specific Hotel Sales paper on the Brazilian market and a microsite to target local hoteliers, this achieved unprecedented results for any region we had entered and a 100% return of investment. Also by diversifying the type of content available and sharing it with the target audience we were able to support the increased usage of tools and adoption of new products and services. As part of the management team and head of the communications department I delivered the strategy for communications, PR and content production and distribution, setting clear goals and KPIs to monitor the performance for the best of the business.

Through the content created we pitched to journalists and the press, reusing this material across multiple media partner websites and publications as features, columns, and news stories. This promoted our educational resources and key messages of the organization while creating valuable links with the press. I created communication workshops with departments for editorial planning, involving customer facing and technical staff, to identify possible news stories and article opportunities for the business.

By establishing cross-departmental and partner project teams I lead the introduction of communications guidelines throughout the business to improve the branding and quality consistency of the company. In this, I achieved the introduction of customer communications policies, direct sales communications procedures, and stakeholder newsletter templates, as well as a corporate branding document. This resulted in quicker turnaround of content being communicated to the audience, consistency of delivery for key messages and much simpler process for distribution. I also managed the implementation of internal content platform Sharepoint for all employees and launched the engagement campaign, and initiated the project development of the company’s products, CRM and CMS. 

This was certainly my biggest role to-date, and during this time I also had the opportunity to consult for other companies on communications, PR and content, delivering strategies and material that has been used to successfully make inroads for their marketing campaigns. I have secured funding for a podcast community project, delivering training across the UK to youth groups and being shortlisted for a Best Broadcast Award. With each an every project I engage with, the aim to to innovate with success. 

For me, communications and content is a wide mix of digital media and I have had experience delivering newsletters, webinars, videos, infographics, animations, articles, reports, both independently and in conjunction with other organizations. Partnerships are certainly key to reaching a new audience, expanding the breath of your reach, diversifying content and adding more depth and quality to the material published. Furthermore, as we see with great news stories and features – do content right and other channels will pick-up on this and reuse, redistribute, and recreate, which is the aim for any content publisher and PR professional.

I want to develop the opportunities available, build a strong brand based on the quality of its publishing and its business, and diversify the opportunities through editorial and commercial partnerships. I am a strong and considerate leader, working with the team, to achieve the aims and objectives, to set realistic deadlines to short and long-term projects.

I enjoy a flexible working environment and supporting the wider team through the delivery of both strategically important projects and daily operations. 

I make inroads...I make changes to make more for the business. 

Do we understand the power of Travel social media?

So many people travel, it’s an escape…So many people love mobile phones, it’s a connection – to an escape….So many people love to share, it’s a connection, is an escape…

Therefore we should not underestimate the power of social media in all our lives, we should not under estimate our own insignificance in all of this. We after all are 1 of over several billion people who love sharing their travel stories; by mouth, by text, by postcard, by phone, by photos, by video….by tweets, by status updates, by blogs….

Dr Peter O’Connor states: This has formed Generation C – the Creative, the Connected, Conversation obsessed, Cash driven, Content hungry. And businesses are ever more listening in to the noise that is created, to get a snapshot of what is being said. We have to remember this is no different than the “Old days” of customer surveys, focus groups, cold calls, feedback forms.

Remy Merckx of CarlsonRezidor Hotel Group said that as consumers they “want their own moment of fame”, and this certainly is not far from the truth as we parade our lives on Facebook, prance in front of YouTube and paparazzi ourselves on Flickr.

And you know the other funny thing – most of what we officially say is positive. According to Severine Philardeau of TripAdvisor, the average score is 4.5 / 5, which means that we’re all being incredibly generous with our scores.

A new technology coming to our hands soon is TripTease, the founder, Charlie Osmond talking of the necessity to “curate a life online” and through TripTease people can ‘enhance their personal brand’.

So we are being given more tools to use to share and create conversation to stay connected, while giving more secrets and information away – but failing to be proper critics because we love everything so much…Apart from the odd B**ch our friends scream on Facebook or through Forums, it really is quite true…we show our lives as perfect and what makes them perfect

– in my opinion – it’s because we want to make people envious of us, we want to show our so-called “friends” that we are happy and successful.

So what is the real truth in the data we share on social media, and how valuable is it really?