Before Zostel, backpacking in India meant Manali, Goa, and very little else. There were no hostels, no community, no infrastructure for the curious and the restless. Zostel built an entirely new category of travel, and in doing so, quietly rewired how a generation of Indians see the world.
In conversation with Brand Beats, Aviral Gupta, CEO of Zostel and Zo World, reflects on what it actually took to get there, and why the mission has only grown bigger.
The company’s founding story traces back to Zostel’s chairman Dharamveer Singh Chouhan, who spent weekends during an internship travelling across cultures, meeting people from different walks of life, different countries, and different ideas of what a good life looks like.
“When you meet people from all these different cultures, it really brings down the walls around how you think about things. You start asking questions you’d never ask in a regular Indian classroom,” Gupta said.
One moment captures this best. Gupta sat anonymously among guests at their Bir property recently, listening to travellers share stories. An 18-year-old girl mentioned it was her seventh trip to Bir through Zostel, and that she felt completely safe travelling alone. “It almost made me emotional. She said Zostel had unlocked the world for her,” he recalled.
Hosting some of the largest numbers of solo female travellers in the country remains among his proudest achievements.
Building a Category, Then an Ecosystem
Creating an industry around hostel culture in India meant doing things no purely commercial calculation would sanction. In 2014, Zostel made all their operational data public, with a how-to guide for anyone who wanted to open a hostel, even a competitor. The logic was simple: India had the depth for five hundred, maybe a thousand thriving travel destinations.
“We don’t look at anyone as a competitor. If you look at India’s history, which spans five thousand years of mythology, philosophy, and stories, we haven’t even touched 5% of the total youth travel potential,” Gupta noted.
The proof arrived early. When Zostel opened in Bir, which was a relatively unknown village over a decade ago, the local economy visibly shifted within two years. Jobs were created, land rates moved, tourism infrastructure followed.
The same story is playing out in Umaray near Kodaikanal, where Zostel is already running at over 94% occupancy. “Every town has a story to tell. You just need to find the right people who are passionate about the destination,” he observed.
By 2019, the team recognised something important. People weren’t just booking accommodation. Rather, they were treating Zostel as a recommendation engine. “Whatever destination we open, the community wants to try it. That trust is what allows us to generate demand in places other brands simply can’t,” Gupta explained. That insight seeded everything that came next.
Why Zo Trips, Why Now
The evolution from solo travel in India into group travel, Zo Trips, came from watching how legacy operators worked. Thomas Cook, Cox & Kings, which are, in Gupta’s words, “phenomenal at scale, but built for efficiency.” He also added, “These are great companies, but they are optimised for scale. You are just ticking things off a checklist. When we talk about local immersion and culture, that’s where the differentiation lies.”
Every community travel destination is researched firsthand by the team. Franchise partners face a rigorous filter. “We are very choosy about who gets to open a franchise. The question isn’t whether someone can run a business. It’s whether they are the right fit for the long term, as we want to build for 20-30 years” he said.
Zo Trips is now also the fastest-growing brand in the Zo World portfolio. Zostel and Zo Trips together account for 95% of revenue. Global expansion is underway through SafeStay in Europe, with Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Japan in the pipeline.
Zo House fits a different need. The Zosteller who checked in at 22 in 2014 is now 35, probably with a partner, more spending power, and a desire for privacy without sacrificing the community feel. “The need for the product changes, but the love for the experience doesn’t,” Gupta pointed out. Zostel Homes exists for exactly that person.
What Travel in India Actually Needs
Gupta is candid about where the broader industry falls short. Before COVID, India welcomed around 11 million foreign tourists annually. Seven years on, the numbers still haven’t recovered. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka and Thailand, with simpler, more affordable infrastructure, have surged ahead. “India as a country does not do good marketing for its own destinations. Given the kind of destinations we have, that is unimaginable to me,” he said.
The traveller psyche, however, is evolving. The Jio-led internet revolution compressed what took Western markets decades into just a few years. Booking windows have collapsed; spontaneity has become the norm. “We launch something on Tuesday, sell out by Thursday, and the trip runs on Friday. The youth travel in India is making on-the-go plans far more than before,” Gupta explained. Zostel’s tech investment, which is built on years of running properties directly, is what allows operations to keep pace.
For Gupta, all of it connects back to something true in 2013 and still true now. “The goal has always been to unlock the world for everyone to travel fearlessly. That hasn’t changed, and it’s only gotten bigger.”
The People Behind The Mission
That same restlessness shaped who eventually joined the team. Nearly all hires come through the internal network. “99% of our hires are from our own network. Someone who has had a story, whose perspective was cracked open by travel, who wants to do something meaningful, that’s who we look for,” he explained.
Gupta also revealed how he himself backpacked across Europe on a shoestring, sleeping on beaches when money ran thin. Zostel was built to give that feeling a permanent address in India.
