Backyard Tour Sdn. Bhd.
Backyard Tour was established in 2015 as a social project to create employment for young adults in villages of rural Sarawak. The core business of the Kuching-based company is to provide tour guide services to local and international tourists in Sarawak. They also host NGOs that want to conduct community projects in Sarawak.
The current business model is based on an NGO-driven social enterprise approach. Whether or not this can be transformed into a social enterprise initiative is subject to the success of initial business coaching.
In 2018, Backyard Tours worked with seven villages conducting an average of two tours a month (ranging from one-day trip to 6-days/5 nights trip) for small groups. Each of the villages has on average two tour guides, one to show them around and another to cook; hence total income opportunities were for up to 504 days per year (7 villages x 2 persons x 3 days average per month x 12 months). To have some more systematic impact in this small geographical area, the company aims at upscaling social reach to 50 B40 people by 2023 and 100 by 2025. The tour guides earn about MYR 200 per tour, summing up to MYR 33,600 per year (or MYR 2,800 per month) for 14 villagers. In addition to the direct earnings to the tour guides, the villages might also provide raw material for food or crafts and accommodation; hence the local economy benefits as well (indirectly).