Great Companies: Please tell me something about the business and how did you come up with such an idea? Subhash Motwani: Namaste Tourism focuses on niche destinations which are not familiar with Indian travellers. We came up with the idea as we believed in the concept that our expertise and know how on destinations which are less explored can be planned by our travel advisors as effortlessly as saying Namaste. We started with Namaste Turkey in 2009 and today we have 12 unique destination specific websites that provides the Indian connection to the lesser known destinations. Great Companies: What are the various services and products provided by your company? Subhash Motwani: We offer luxury hotel booking , customised itineraries, plan premium incentives and experiential holiday planning is our strength. With our preferred partnership progamme with some of the global luxury hotel brands we are able to offer unique value adds such as early check-in, late check out, complimentary breakfasts , upgrades and more. In the experiential travel category we also offer marathon tours for Indian active leisure travellers who wish to run the World Major Marathons such as the Berlin Marathon as well as off beat runs such as the Midnight Sun run in Tromso, Norway. Great Companies: Why should one choose you over others in this field? Subhash Motwani:Most travel companies offer capital cities only as part of their itineraries. They provide standard programmes whereas we offer off beat destinations which makes the travel experience more authentic as the visitors not only explore the touristy places but are able to visit places that are less travelled thus encouraging responsible tourism as well.
Great Companies: What are the struggles and challenges you face? Subhash Motwani: The challenges is to explain to visitors that when on holiday , it is good to explore the less crowded places as everyone wants to visit the London, Paris , Prague and Budapest - major towns. Once convinced, the clients come back and appreciate that the beauty in visiting the Provence, Lake Balaton, Liverpool or Cesky Krumlov makes their experience of visiting a country complete and more authentic. We encourage visitors to go beyond the ordinary by introducing unique concepts of travel - hub and spoke, reel to real are some of our innovative initiatives. Great Companies: What do you think are the few main things which are most important for a successful business? Subhash Motwani: Success in business is to evolve and change constantly as per the emerging trends of the industry. It is doing pro-active rather than reactive selling, understand how tourism needs to be sustainable and balanced. Introducing novel concepts of encouraging rural tourism and maintaining balance through volontourism, reducing carbon foot prints will help in long term conservation of the environment. Overtourism has already lead to catastrophic consequences and we must travel responsibly. Getting out of the comfort zone is the key to success to create innovative ideas and concepts.
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