August 11, 2015 TnH Global

“We will continue with what we have strategized for the future.”

In an exclusive interview with TnH, Jaal Shah, Group Managing Director of Travel Designer Group, talked about his remarkable entrepreneurial journey and his future initiatives.

There are many feathers in his cap. Jaal Shah, who is held in high esteem by his peers and the industry leaders, has achieved many milestones in his entrepreneur career. Speaking about the inception of his company, Shah says, “A small dynamic team had started Travel Designer Group way back in 1999, and I was the part of the group as its managing director. We started as a small tour operator offering short-haul destinations to our travel partners.” Going forward, Shah slowly and steadily diversified the group activity with the launch of products like Designer Packages (Offline outbound), Designer Indya (Offline Inbound) and the Award winning global reservation system i.e. RezLive.com. Launched in 2007, RezLive has brought the entire world at the doorsteps of the travel agents.

On being asked about the motivation behind the launch of RezLive.com, Shah says, “One thing that motivated me to come up with a product like RezLive.com was to make the life of our travel partners easy.” He adds, “As the traditional way of making booking was lengthy and required lots of man-hours, RezLive.com came as a solution and provided travel agents, the much required access to make bookings on their own by getting regular support from our team.”

Shah firmly believes that taking initiative is the first step toward fulfillment of one’s dream. He says, “I have always believed in one thing – whatever you can do or whatever you dream to do, just start it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. So, once the idea to start up something on my own hit my mind, I was ready for it and was also prepared to face all the challenges related to it. Success is something that doesn’t come easily; you need to sweat hard to earn that.”

Elaborating on his vision and objectives for his organization, Shah said, “The primary vision with which the organization started was to be one of the key global wholesalers offering innovative products with excellent services to our travel partners at best net rates.”

When asked how successful he has been in realizing his founding goals, Shah says, “Our growth story and profitability chart of the organization depicts that we are able to adhere to what we thought when we started the organization and we will continue with what we have strategized for the future.”

Travel Designer Group has become a valuable brand now in Asia Pacific and Middle East and everyone would like to get associated with it in some way or the other. Enumerating key achievements of his organization, Shah said, “Key achievements of our company are that we are a global brand with presence in 17 countries and one of the top global wholesaler companies in the world.”

As regards the challenges he faced in the early days of his company, Shah says, “When we started off, the biggest challenge was our ideology as we wanted to serve our travel partners by providing them innovative products, cutting edge technology, the best in class customer support, and best net rates.”

Shah adds, “Fortunately, we made a great enthusiastic team who was and is passionate about their work and who believed in what we are trying to do. It is all because of these individuals we are what and where we are today, a pioneer in the industry!”

About the USP of his company, Shah says, “We are a 100 per cent B2B Company which provides our travel partners the option to book hotels, sightseeing and transfers under one interface. When travel agents connect with us they get access to mapped inventory around the world. This is important and is one of our many USPs.”

He further says, “We are a very highly focused organization and as a result of which, we need to be extremely good with our offering be it inventory, user friendly interface or rates. We also have a dedicated 24*7 service support team that work round the clock to offer post booking services to our travel partners.” Shah continues, “Our greatest achievement is in our product development and service standards.”

When TnH asked him about his satisfaction with his entrepreneurial success, Shah said, “The best entrepreneurs are never satisfied with what they’ve already achieved. They’re innovators through and through, which is why you won’t see them stop and rest on their laurels. Even if they experience what the rest of the people in the world would consider to be ‘success,’ entrepreneurs are already scheming away over how much bigger and better their next projects will be. As a result of which, I am also trying to be in same league i.e. not being satisfied as I have much more to explore and innovate.”

Key feats of Travel Designer Group
• A global brand with presence in 17 countries
• One of the top global wholesaler companies in the world
• RezLive.com got 13 awards in last three years.
• Maintained double digit growth.
• Global team of more than 250 employees
• 24*7 support service
• Offering innovative products

"“The primary vision with which the organization started was to be one of the key Global Wholesalers offering innovative products with excellent services to our travel partner’s at best net rates.”"