Subhash is Director of Compact Travels and is also the Founder of Namaste Tourism – a platform which encourages sharing of memorable experiences thru tourism exchanges. Compact Travels thru the Namaste Tourism brand specialises in customised holidays, experiential travel, bespoke journeys and premium incentives to niche destinations.
Starting his career in 1988 as a Travel and Tourism Instructor, Subhash has completed over 30 IATA qualifications and has been the Editor of OPPORTUNITIES TODAY and the blog version www.opportunitestoday.wordpress.com . Besides featuring regular blogs on Namaste Tourism website, Subhash has done special projects for the Consulate of Argentina in Mumbai during the Presidential Visit of the Former President of Argentina to India , a photographic exhibition called Bella Argentina – showcasing Argentina as a destination through pictures; a presentation at the behest of the Consul General of Argentina titled “Wine, Tango & Football” for special invitees. He has been invited to visit Guatemala by the Ambassador of Guatemala in India and has written blogs on Guatemala as well as other destinations – http://www.namastetourism.com/travel-blog/ and has had visitors from India travelling to the Mayan Land. The project of creating destination specific websites started with Namaste Turkey in 2009 and as of the start of 2018, there are 10 more destination specific websites – Namaste Germany, Namaste Egypt, Namaste South Africa , Namaste New Zealand , Namaste Argentina , Namaste Poland , Namaste Hungary , Namaste Israel , Namaste Portugal and Namaste Croatia. The series would expand in the coming years to encourage the Indian outbound traveller to explore one destination at a time and offer them a wide range of choices within the destination – from unique holiday ideas to expert advice by our team of destination planners. The discerning traveller can also share his experience of exploring places like never before the Namaste way.
Subhash started his career, 30 years ago as a travel and foreign language Educator and continues as the director of RBCS GROUP– leading vocational institute established in 1954. The tourism training division known as IHCTM has had the unique distinction of being the first authorised training centre worldwide to offer 7 IATA qualifications and in 2018 with fast changing trends in the tourism industry, Namaste Tourism along with IHCTM will launch Entrepreneurship programmes for those interested in entering the Tourism Industry.
Subhash was invited by IATA(International Air Transport Association) for the Pilot Testing of the international tourism programme launched worldwide in the year 2000. Subhash has also done destination presentations for Globus and Cosmos for regions of Eastern Europe such as Poland and the Czech Republic and with his expertise in content development and presentations, Subhash has done destination specialized training workshops for travel agents for destinations such as Turkey, Germany , New Zealand which was done in association with Tourism New Zealand at the time of the launch of the website – www.namastenewzealand.com – Your Indian connection to New Zealand . In 2010, www.namasteargentina.com – was launched during the bi-centennial year of the May Revolution and in 2011, Subhash was invited by the Consulate of Argentina in Mumbai to do a presentation for leading tour operators in Mumbai on how to sell Argentina as a destination.
Subhash as a content development expert has assisted tourism boards and Consuls General to showcase their destination to the Indian outbound traveller in creative and innovative ways. On 25th November 2010, Subhash along with Aneesh Bhasin held an exhibition of pictures in Mumbai known as Bella Argentina which was presented by the Consulate of Argentina in Mumbai. Later in 2014, Namaste Hungary was launched under the auspices of the then Ambassador of Hungary to India H.E.Silzvester Bus and the Consul General of Hungary in Mumbai H.E.Dr Norbert Revai Bere. In 2016, Subhash was invited as the Keynote speaker during the Visegrad 4 workshop organised by the tourism boards of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia to a gathering of travel professionals in Mumbai and Delhi to present an itinerary and programme combining the V4 countries.
Since 2016, there has been a surge in the luxury travel segment and Namaste Tourism was extended an invitation to be part of Traveller Made as Namaste Tourism had launched its luxury website – Luxury Vignettes, featuring luxury villas & accommodation, experiential travel and signature tours. Thereafter, Namaste Tourism also is now a Four Seasons preferred partner, VITA member of Leading Hotels of the World and has participated in luxury shows such as Pure, ILTM , Connections, Private Luxury Forum, amongst others. As an avid marathoner, Subhash organised the first special interest tour for a group of runners from India in 2017 to Tromso, Norway – the Midnight Sun run, where he ran the Full Marathon as well. Amongst the new products to be launched in 2018 are ski and winter holiday programmes.
Subhash’s area of expertise includes tourism and aviation training, writing, consulting on exotic destinations and combining his passion for photography, showcasing destinations through pictures.
Having visited over 50 countries, Subhash has qualified as a destination expert for a wide range of destinations including Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa – from the Southern Hemisphere, to Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Germany in Central Europe; from Turkey, Israel, Egypt and Jordan around the Mediterranean and Red Sea to Scotland, Ireland and Spain in Western Europe and also special interest tours such as Soft Adventure, River Cruising and Barging in France as well as Top Honeymoon destinations of Europe.
In the training segment, besides completing the IATA/UFTAA 4 level programme upto the Senior Management level and the IATA Air Cargo Dangerous Goods programme, Subhash was one of the first few to complete the Quality Inspector’s Award from City & Guilds of London Institute,U.K as well as the Fares and Ticketing course from Chameleon Training which was initially run by British Airways and now is offered as the Virgin Atlantic Fares and Ticketing programme
In 2014, Namaste Tourism, with its wide range of expertise across various segments of tourism started representing companies and consulting them on promoting destinations in India under DMRC (Destination Marketing, Representation and Consulting).
THIS IS HOW IT BEGAN:
Subhash’s initial interest in travel began in 1986 when he first visited Europe for a holiday followed by an extended stay in London where he completed Conversational courses in French and Spanish languages with ILEA (Inner London Education Authority). He appeared for his first IATA/UFTAA examination in 1988, the IATA/UFTAA Standard Course at that time and since then there was no looking back. After completing his graduation in 1988 from H.R.College of Commerce and Economics, Subhash chose to get into the field of Vocational Training and Education in a full fledged way initially specializing in training candidates for the Travel and Airline Industry as well as foreign languages.
Subhash started training a few candidates for the IATA/UFTAA course as soon as he completed the IATA/UFTAA Advanced Consultant Diploma in 1989 and devised simplified tests and question sets to ensure that candidates excel in the exams. At the same time, he made frequent trips abroad to study Italian , French with the Université de Caen in France and later in 1993, he completed the Nivel Superior in Spanish from the Instituto Español de Granada in Spain. Simultaneously, he also completed 2 years of Italian in Mumbai as well as pursued over the years German and elementary Japanese.
His first interest in Cargo started when he did his first IATA/FIATA Cargo Introductory course in 1990 as by that time RBCS GROUP was already training candidates for Cargo and by 1992, Subhash became the youngest and highest qualified person in India to have completed 5 IATA qualifications including 2 IATA/UFTAA and 3 IATA/FIATA programmes. Subhash received several invitations both from airlines and various agencies to work for them, however his passion in training and imparting quality education along with my interest in foreign languages continued relentlessly and in 1993, IHCTM was appointed as an authorized training centre to train candidates for the IATA/UFTAA programmes.
Seeing the excellent results for the IATA/UFTAA programmes, IATA invited Subhash to train candidates for the IATA/FIATA programme and IHCTM became an authorized training centre to offer the IATA Air Cargo Training in December 1994 and thus IHCTM became the first authorized training centre in India to offer both IATA/UFTAA as well as IATA Air Cargo programmes under one roof. Since then students from IHCTM have excelled in their IATA Travel and IATA Air Cargo examinations and from a single subject of IATA, today IHCTM offers as many as 7 IATA qualifications. Later, students started identifying IHCTM as an institute setting global standards and IHCTM gets students from across the globe ranging from smaller towns like Bursa in Turkey, Santorini in Greece, Liberec in Czech Republic as well as places such as London, Dubai, Bahrain, Nairobi and literally from all corners of the globe. IHCTM thus reversed the trend of students going abroad for higher learning in tourism and airline studies and even today students come from various cities to experience quality training. Later in 2000, IHCTM became the FIRST authorized training centre in the world out of 210 IATA authorized training centres to offer as many as 7 IATA qualifications.
The TOUR Company:
In 2004, when RBCS group completed 50 years, Subhash started Compact Travels and today Compact Travels is identified as a company offering niche and premium holidays as well as special interest tours.
With the focus shifting towards tourism consulting, project 2011 includes planning destination specialized programmes as the need of the hour is to have candidates who are not only qualified but also employable especially with the ever changing trends of the travel and tourism industry. Also to showcase destinations with unique strategies of photo exhibits, merchandising are some of the ideas which will further evolve in the near future.
On the social front, Subhash has been over the years involved in exposing institutes who have been misguiding students through false promises and bogus foreign affiliations through a department called CRUSADERS. He has been a member of ASCI (Advertising Standards Council of India) as well as life member of CGSI (Consumer Guidance Society of India) and has been the President of CHCRA(Clean Heritage Colaba Residents Association)
Subhash’s MISSION statement
To pursue my objective of imparting tourism knowledge with total zeal, enthusiasm and involvement keeping ethics, welfare, values in pursuit of excellence and quality service thru effective leadership and commitment.