Stay Raja Ampat is the website of PT Bahari Perjampat Sejahtera (PERJAMPAT).
PERJAMPAT is a Papuan social enterprise that is fully owned and operated by members of the Raja Ampat Homestay Association. 100% of payments made on PERJAMPAT’s Stay Raja Ampat website directly benefit Homestay Association member families and their communities.
The Raja Ampat Homestay Association is a community organisation dedicated to improving the wellbeing of Raja Ampat’s indigenous communities on their own land, while restoring and sustaining the island’s unique ecosystems for future generations.
All of PT Bahari Perjampat Sejahtera’s profits are either reinvested in the business, or are used to support community development and environmental projects implemented by the Homestay Association.
PT Bahari Perjampat Sejahtera’s operations are supported through a technical and management services agreement with the social enterprise Seventy Three Pte Ltd with the aim of delivering excellent customer service while building the capacity of Raja Ampat’s communities to run the business for themselves.
Read more about
The Raja Ampat Homestay Association.
Seventy Three Pte Ltd’s support of the Homestay Association.
Stay Raja Ampat’s booking system: Designed to overcome the unique challenges faced by homestay operators in Raja Ampat, SRA’s online booking system is unlike any other.
Stay in touch
If you’d like to receive updates from Stay Raja Ampat via social media, please do follow our facebook page. Here is our Twitter feed, and our Raja Ampat Travellers’ Forum facebook group provides a venue to meet fellow visitors, exchange information and arrange transport sharing.
The backstory
Stay Raja Ampat’s founders describe how Stay Raja Ampat was born:
Our first visit to Raja Ampat was in April 2011, at a time when the only websites offering accommodation in the islands were those of the foreign-owned dive resorts, and a single site that advertised a locally-owned homestay on Pulau Kri. We opted for the homestay.
A few weeks before arriving in Raja Ampat, we tried to reconfirm our stay, but the contact phone number was no longer working. We were concerned, but determined, so we went anyway. When we finally arrived at Waisai, the promised boat pickup was nowhere to be found…
While arranging our unexpected night’s stay in Waisai, we met a local guide who told us that the place we’d booked had since been exclusively leased by the cast and crew of the French edition of the Survivor TV show. A moment’s panic ensued. Then our guide told us that three other homestays existed, and that he could show them to us the following morning.
We had a fabulous adventure, met a lot of wonderful people and promised that we’d try to help them by building a website to let the world know that their businesses existed.
The result was the launching of Raja Ampat Homestays in August of 2011. The following year, with more families having built homestays in the islands, we launched v2.0 of Raja Ampat Homestays and Stay Raja Ampat was born. Then, in December 2013, our friends in the newly-formed Raja Ampat Homestay Association suggested that we be brought onboard to help further develop the website and provide guest feedback and customer service training to Association members.
Since that time, and with the support of Seventy Three Pte Ltd, we have worked with the Homestay Association to deliver the technical and guest support services that Association members identified as essential for their success.
In 2019, the Association completed registration of their wholly-owned company PT Bahari Perjampat Sejahtera, and launched a booking payment system on Stay Raja Ampat.
Homestay Association members hope that the sales commissions earned by their Stay Raja Ampat website will provide the means by which their Association will become an entirely self-funded and independent organisation, able to support and represent local communities long into the future.
We are privileged to have had the opportunity to share in the amazing journey undertaken by communities in Raja Ampat as they work together to remain as masters of their own land. Their achievements have been remarkable, and were recognised in 2017 by the award of an Equator Prize from the United Nations Development Programme.
We will always be grateful for the kindness, generosity and understanding shown by our friends in Raja Ampat as we climb a long and steep learning curve together. We’re grateful, and heartened too, by the support received from you: The many kind and caring travellers to Raja Ampat who understand and support the aspirations of local communities. It’s only with your support that local communities will be able to continue their development toward the future they envision.
Injo nabor (thank you) friends.
Doug & Amber
January 2020