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Name: Monica Arun

Business: Globetrotter Travel Club LLP

Location: Bangalore, India

Industry: Travel, Hospitality & Events

Reason for starting? I became a Travelpreneur from the comfort of my house, due to motherhood. Globetrotter Travel Club LLP was born in 2012, completely on the basis of my vast travel knowledge. I built up the business from a storeroom in our residential complex where 400 families reside, as it wasn’t possible for me to step out and work due to my new born babe. The business was knowledge based and the office was a low cost. I not only started making profits from day 1, but I started earning in dollars and euros. It is my passion to design a meaningful and memorable holiday for people so that I can give them experiences which they can call the ‘time of their life.” Each holiday is planned as if they are my own. I build my business along with playing a mommy to a new born.

Related: Read about another Travel entrepreneur here. 

How do you define success? Success means knowing I have done my best for our clients and employees. I feel successful when I have done more than is expected out of me, with positive results.

Biggest success: My biggest success is the confidence I built up in order to start my Travel Company. I never thought I could run a ‘business’ and here I have successfully completed 5 years today!! We started off by being just another travel agent. However, I realized that the success of a trip depends a lot on how the destination has been planned for the client. Hence we changed from being a Travel Agent to being a Destination & Itinerary planning company. I realized that even after a travel agent has given the off-the-shelf itineraries to the clients, they still have to go on the net and search for things to do and see in the local country. This is where we fill the gap. With my vast travel and destination knowledge gathered during my working years in India’s top 3 travel companies, today I am a certified Destination Specialist for multiple countries, certified by the respective tourism boards. We have multiple discussions with our clients, to understand their requirements and map out a plan. We stay in touch with them while they are on tour to ensure seamless vacations.

Related: Read about another mompreneur here. 

What is your top challenge and how you have addressed it? Taking care of a small child and running an enterprise, which requires to be connected 24*7 due to the different time zones in the world can be a biggest challenge. Being mother, wife and running a business, all at the same time can be extremely taxing. To overcome this, I have started waking up at 4am daily, so that I can catch up with my work before I take on some hours of motherhood responsibilities. I always have my next day planned and I try my best to allocate time for my kid and my work. Hence most of my office work which requires written communications needs to be over before my son comes back from School. This way, I am able to balance both – work and home, to a larger extent.

Who is your most important role model? My 6 year old son is my role-model because if it was not for him, I would never have realized that I can become an entrepreneur. My husband, who has motivated me to follow my passion and who lends a helping hand with my son over the weekends to ensure I can give more time to my meetings with customers and vendors. Last but not the least, my ex-boss, from whom I have learnt a never give-up attitude and also learnt how to have an eye for detail when you plan a holiday for someone.

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Edited by The Story Exchange