Go offbeat, all hipster young travelers!

Dwell into an unknown world with ‘Madhuchhanda's Globe Trotter’s Footprints’

Madhuchhanda Banerjee Bose (42 years) started her career as a freelance journalist. She had eventually worked as a Public Relations Officer and Manager Branch Operations in IT companies. Involved with a communications consultancy, she has conducted communications classes in different colleges, universities and corporate houses. From 2011 onwards Madhuchhanda started her psycho consultation in association with Indian Defense Organizations. After a long stint which included diverse professional experiences, she identified her interest in entrepreneurship and took the plunge. Started in 2013, The globe Trotter’s Footprints is an experience unto itself.

Madhuchhanda discusses about her travel startup, in a candid chat with Baishali Mukherjee:

Travel with a difference

Ours is a travel company with uniqueness. Apart from popular destinations we mainly promote offbeat tourism. I prefer calling it a project for travelling to unknown destinations. It’s important to feel the destination rather than listing the names from magazines and visiting it. In the process, we promote around 720 destinations throughout the country. Of these, around 400 are offbeat or lesser-known. Taking the initiative to make people aware of the concept of traveling, familiarizing them with the people, place, food and lifestyle of the places, we offer variety of options.

We also promote a different type of accommodation in much known and popular places. Offering consultation and organizing tours for our clients according to their budget, we emphasise on providing customized services to the single women and senior citizens. Our bouquet also includes trips to Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Greece, Turkey, Thailand, Singapore and UAE.

The germination

My husband and I are ardent travelers. I harbor the passion for exploring unknown destinations. Ever since our marriage, every now and then we would pack our bags and set off to unknown destinations. Once back I would urge my friends to visit the place and helped them with bookings and other itineraries. The trigger to do it professionally eventually came from the happiness I brought in the travel experiences of my friends.

I started with a mere Rs 10,000 as a proprietorship company. In the last four years the company has done more than 300 FIT and group packages. We are now planning to tie up with people of distant villages in different potential tourism destinations of the country. We plan to provide them with hospitality training. This will be followed by providing the local communities with opportunities to promote their place and resources to the world.

The modus operandi

Madhuchhanda Banerjee Bose

Currently, we operate from our South Kolkata office. But we are all set to inaugurate our second office in the adjoining locality. Our hiring strategy include recruiting business associates who work in tandem with us in different parts of our city, and other districts of West Bengal.

During Durga Puja we promote and organize daily trips to the famed pujas held at the legendary family houses of Kolkata. We also plan to organize day trips to have a relaxed puja experience in the serene villages of Bengal.

The Globetrotter’s Footprints, or TGF as we call it, organizes individual or group tours according to the budget and choices of the clients. We also offer fixed trips four-five times a year to various parts of India where I personally accompany my clients to build an everlasting relationship with them.

I am blessed to have clients who have never met me but have availed our services six-seven times in these years just by interacting with me over Facebook, LinkedIn.

Your success milestones

When I started off in 2013, there was not much awareness among travelers about offbeat tourism. People were in general skeptical about experimenting with their travel aspirations. But the scenario has changed a lot in the last four years. Today people call me up saying that they are eager to explore unusual destinations or off- the- wall staying experiences.

I do face business challenges from online travel portals. But I believe that my business needs humane touch which these portals cannot provide. In the long run it is the relation that matters the most.

We have been successful in bringing in elements of interest and quirk to popular and often visited destinations. This is what has been a great favorite with our clients.

Our travel arrangements have won us the faith of senior citizens and single women travelers. My clients do the promotional exercise for me and I never had to spend for advertising. All the business I have done till date with more than 450 clients have come from “word of mouth”.

Since last year we have tied up with Bookmyshow and are doing business online as well. This partnership has helped us in spreading awareness about Durga Puja of Bengal, a grand and opulent street festival of the country.

Future plans

Our ambition is to have a better percentage of satisfied customers than the previous year. I strongly believe that ‘Happy clients build successful Business Empire.’ We are still a fledgling organization but have clients who vouch for us when it comes to traveling in the truest sense of the term.

I am also planning to promote the rustic and unfamiliar beauty of some of the Indian states to the inbound NRI and foreign tourists.

Have you ever been anywhere with an ‘offbeat travel’ player? Do share your views.