A Girl with Prosthesis Started her own Travel Company Dream Holiday from scratch.

This story is about a Female entrepreneur who did not give up her dream and started her own Travel Company from scratch. This successful journey is about Khyati Mehta: Owner of Dream Holiday

Few questions which she answered when we were having a talk

1. How did you start your journey?

My dad had always been an entrepreneur. He was in USA for 7 years when he gave his small travel planning franchise business to me to handle after I finished with my BSc IT. 

I wanted to pursue further education where my PR or Communication skill is developed and thus I pursued MMS from Janki Devi Bajaj Institute of Management studies. With my studies, I managed small bookings with unique destination planning advertisements.  
Scaling up was a challenge as I did not have much experience and taking online guidance from dad was not so easy to implement. 

I chose to work with Travelguru and Then SOTC for 2 years each to gain experience in sales as well as operations. After seeing slow growth from my job with SOTC inspite of working till late hours, I decided to work for myself instead and bring prosperity in my family and also uplift colleagues who want to work with us.
Also, I was passionate to plan unique destinations which I was not able to do in SOTC as they were more focused on group tours and standard itinerary planning.

I did try to give interview with Beacon Holidays led by Mrs. Heena Munshaw as they specialised in unique destination planning and niche clientele.  They wanted me to join as trainee with half the salary I was getting at SOTC and that too after having 8 years of experience. I was not ready to work at such a low scale and cadre after having enough experience, skills and passion.

So slower growth, lesser flexibility in implementing my ideas, restrictions in utilization of my skills and the lower pay scale was a kick or a turning point to start my own.

2. What motivated you to start your business in spite of all the hassles that you have gone through because of your leg issue?

My physical challenge has always been my weakness as well as strength.
Weakness because travelling, physical pain, discomfort with the changing weather and my attire presentation skills make it least known to the world about challenges I go through in daily living. Apart from the challenge with my limb, I have challenges in my hands as well. My elbow joints are fused giving limited stretchability of both the hands.
My will power is extremely strong and that led me to achieve my goals without any hassles.
I started my own venture Dream Holiday in the year 2011 as a PSA of SOTC wherein we get the flexibility of doing our own visa consulting, air ticketing and passport documentation over and above sales and marketing for group tours of SOTC.
I selected that model as it’s always easy to grow with the brand than to grow alone in the beginning phase when people don’t know you yet.
SOTC has assigned the Mira Bhayander location to start our retail outlet and our territory to perform Marketing ad=nd advertisement activities were restricted to Mira Bhayander region. It’s the 10th year of inception of Dream Holiday and we are growing with repeat clients and referral clientele.

3. How you would like to see your venture Dream Holiday in the next coming years and what are your plans for the company growth?

My speciality is unique destination planning through customization thus I want to focus on Luxury travel planning and specially-abled friendly travel consulting as my primary focusing upcoming Travel consultancy business model.
I am among the topmost USA, UK and Canada visa consultants and will continue to grow that practice.
As far as number growth is concerned, I want to see myself as among top 5 Luxury travel planners and topmost Accessible travel promoter of India.
In the coming future, Dream Holiday will be a co-brand of Khyati as the main brand. I will be changing strategies as I am skilled as a consultant than a collaborator. 

4. Advice that you would like to give people who want to be an entrepreneur.
Those who want to be Entrepreneur have to be ready mentally to accept ups and downs of not just finances but also moral differences. Getting moral down is easy with all entrepreneurs as not all days are the same. In those tough days if you sustain from entrepreneur to be a peon or cashier or operation executive or sales executive or all of them again to restart from scratch then you can sustain any storms. Be ready to sustain all storm is the only key according to me for a successful Entrepreneurship.

5. What is the revenue model of the company and how long you have been in the business?

We have following products and hierarchy at present: Travel consultancy, Visa consultancy, Other travel products: air ticketing, passport documentation,  travel insurance, forex services, international calling services.

6. How do you survive the competitive tourism industry and what is your USP?
Consulting is my forte – Unique destination planning and visa consulting has supported me to sustain the past competitions with all stability and might.

7. How are you planning to deal with COVID-19?

Well, as a strategy to fight the challenges arisen due to COVID-19 hitting the world, I am planning to rebrand with Khyati as the Parent Brand. 
Under Khyati brand there will be diverse product and consulting services Viz – Luxury travel planning, Visa consulting, Accessible travel planning, Culinary travel planning, offbeat travel planning, Experiential travel planning, Travel blogs and vlogs, Accessible fashion wear (fashion wear for specially-abled travellers) and motivational speaker.
My punch line has always been – Be a Traveler and not just a Tourist. 
Always an Entrepreneur should to be open to expand the scope of brand’s operations and services such that it would give more opportunities to travel through tough times.

This story is really inspirational. Entrepreneurship is not just about fat profits. There is a lot more to it.