From 1989 till date

Friday the 13th October 1989, a day forever etched in my memory, the day I started my first job as a Tours assistant and it has been an exciting journey since then. A month into the journey, a chance visit to Taj Palace Hotel as a part of my training on how to see off a large group, led me down a path which made me a trip leader. A french speaking group traveling with us was waiting for their Guide who had not shown up. We found that he had met with an accident just in front of our office. 

My colleague took an on the spot decision to put me on the bus to travel with the group. Here was a situation now, a 19 year old tours assistant who had never visited the itinerary this group was doing, hadn't been home in 2 nights, had no money in his pocket and ZERO experience of Trip leading and did not speak a word of French, accompanying a French speaking group who did not speak any English. 

What I experienced during the 3 days I spent with the group, made one thing clear to me that this was the direction i wanted to go in. It helped that I spoke german and compared to what the other Trip leader and guides spoke, i was way ahead (I guess having learned it at a younger age from Goethe Institut did have its advantages) and this led me to start my Trip leading career and over the next 16 years I travelled from the north to the south and east to the west. 

I started with regular group departures from Germany aka series business as we call it and then gradually got into ADHOC groups and realized that I enjoyed the ADHOC groups more and gradually started also migrating towards Signature Journeys. This led me to not only operate these but also travel as a Keynote Speaker to sell these. 

From here a natural progression was to move towards Luxury travel and also educating Travel advisors on India, Bhutan and Nepal.

In 2005, I was offered to lead the Sales for Far Horizon Tours & Travels and from there on the last 19 years have been spent in developing Sales Strategies and driving in more awareness about India, Bhutan and Nepal amongst the Tour operators and helping them sell more of our destinations. 

Today, I lead the sales for Indi Horizons, a DMC who is led by passionate professionals and we help Travel professionals sell more experiential travel to help travelers discover authentic India, Bhutan and Nepal.