Sacred journeys or serene retreats? Strategic choices at Jahangir Cottage

Research methodology The case is based on primary data collected through interviews with the owner-operator and observations from field visits, supplemented by secondary data from online platforms, internal records and tourism industry sources. Case overview/synopsis Dr Jahangir Lone, a 32-year-old with a PhD in economics, was at a crossroads in June 2025 about Jahangir Cottage, his family’s guesthouse in the beautiful town of Pahalgam, Kashmir. His father started the business in 2015 to serve mostly pilgrims coming to the Amarnath Yatra. At first, it did well by providing simple but cheap places to stay. But as competition grew, especially from informal businesses and customer expectations changed, the original model started to fail. After coming back from school in 2024, Jahangir wanted to change the business. He put money into fixing up the rooms, retraining the staff and changing the name of the cottage to make it a boutique destination for vacationers, such as honeymooning couples, city families and international backpackers. This change had beneficial effects during the off-season, such as better online reviews, more loyal customers and higher average tariffs. However, a strategic problem soon emerged. The guesthouse was not used much during the busy July–August Yatra season because it charged too much, while competitors who catered to pilgrims at lower prices were full. Family members and staff were worried about the decline in sales and the choice to give up on the original pilgrim market. Prior to the forthcoming Amarnath Yatra period, Jahangir faces a clear strategic decision: to revert to a low-priced pilgrim format to achieve maximum short-term occupancy, to maintain emphasis on boutique leisure travellers to maintain brand heritage or to adopt a mixed format catering to both groups. It involves a trade-off between short-term monetary soundness and long-term positioning of the brand and stakeholder expectations. Complexity academic level This case is suitable for a broad range of students on both undergraduate and postgraduate business and management courses, particularly those on courses in strategic decision-making, services marketing, tourism management, entrepreneurship and family business dynamics. Postgraduate students on MBA courses in strategic management, customer experience design, or hospitality leadership will consider the case to be most suitable, while undergraduates on courses in hospitality, tourism studies or entrepreneurial ventures will appreciate the case equally so with its roots in real decision-making and operational issues. The case is also suitable for executive education modules on repositioning the market and segmenting customers in relaxed, uncertain, or seasonal markets, particularly within the larger South Asian or emerging economy tourism systems. The case poses strategic questions on brand identity, customer segment prioritisation, hybrid service models and stakeholder pressures, making the case suitable for courses such as Strategic Management, Services Marketing, Hospitality and Tourism Management, Small Business Strategy and Entrepreneurship in Emerging Markets. The case is best positioned in the middle or second half of the course, when students have already been introduced to core concepts such as Porter’s Generic Strategies, SWOT analysis, customer lifetime value (CLV), service blueprinting and segmentation-targeting-positioning (STP) frameworks. Instructors can use the case to reinforce the point that strategic decisions cannot be divorced from operational realities, stakeholder expectations and contextual constraints – particularly in service businesses with variable demand, such as pilgrimage-based tourism. The case also lends itself to active learning formats such as stakeholder role-plays (e.g. Jahangir vs family vs staff), strategy simulation exercises and structured debates on financial trade-offs versus brand integrity. It may be delivered in traditional face-to-face classrooms, hybrids or online with virtual breakout rooms and shared visual tools for collaborative scenario analysis.