PGO: Find Your Affordable Home Away From Home

Atithi Devo Bhava means 'Guest is God'. This slogan refers to a procedure of host–guest relationship and specifies host’s role in this divine kind of relationship. This is one of the true senses of Indian culture and tradition. Recently Atithi Devo Bhava has also become the tag line of India Tourism's campaign to improve the treatment of tourists in India. During the olden days, the travelers are entertained by the villagers at the destination by offering food and shelter at no cost. Similarly students who travel to other towns for higher studies are also supported by the families in those towns by offering food and shelter at no cost. As days pass by, all these services had become ‘paid services’ and the guests are referred as ‘paying guests’. Many commercial establishments across the globe were built to provide lodging, food and other guest services with different ranges of facilities. In this journey hospitality has happened to be one of the vital business in service industry and many organizations started participating in it. With high competition around, hospitality companies have set industry standards to classify stay types. An upscale full-service facility offers luxury amenities, full service accommodations, an on-site restaurant, and the highest level of personalized service, such as a concierge, room service and laundry service etc, whereas the low-scale service facility i.e. budget-oriented, sociable accommodation where guests can rent a bed, usually a bunk bed, in a dormitory and share a bathroom, lounge and sometimes a kitchen. The services and the facilities vary in size, function and cost leading to different varieties of accommodations such hostels, PG, lodges, resorts, service apartments, guest houses, cottages and many hotels ranging by their star category. Thinkwide, a business Organization was formed in 2015 to support visionary individuals, groups, organizations to shape up their ideas into a viable business. The team of WideThinkers looked in to the journey of the hospitality industry and also the digital platforms that support in dealing with accommodation services. In this process this team conducted a survey in India mainly on the recent platforms dealing with accommodation services via electronic format such website, App etc. During the brainstorming sessions, the team has zeroed on few major challenges faced by the guest. Most of the guests pointed out on cost inflation and lack of knowledge specific to different varieties of accommodation types available at the destination. Even though there are many Websites, Apps available, those are limited to dealing with few accommodation categories and the gap is much wider for categories of budget-oriented and sociable accommodation across urban and rural India. Finally the team of WideThinkers indicated that there is an opportunity for Thinkwide to venture in to hospitality industry (ThinkWide. ThinkHospitality) mainly to deal with all types of accommodation services ranging from budget-oriented to upscale varieties across India. As this is ‘online’ platform meant for ‘paying guest’, the team named it as ‘paying guest online’ and the brand ‘PGO’. PGO supports all travelers who are home away’ students or officers, business men or working women, long stay or short, vegetarian or non-vegetarian, budget or expensive, urban or rural. PGO also supports hosts to showcase their properties on its platform and influence their business growth by scale and quality. Simply PGO created a platform for Guest and Host to meet, interact and continue the divine kind relationship ‘Atithi Devo Bhava’. Home Away. Go PGO Way. (A true story by a WideThinker)