One fine luxurious Sunday

With a vision to make luxury travel affordable and flexible for Indian travellers, Jyot and Purvi Jhaveri set into motion the Sunday story. Focusing purely on innovation and ethics in business, the company aims to position Sunday Pure Holidays as a luxury travel brand rather than just another travel agency By Reema Lokesh

From looking after his own family business to entering an industry, which he was earlier wary of, Jyot Jhaveri, founder, Sunday Pure Holidays, has come a long way. He attributes his entry into the travel space to Vishu Mutta who gave him a sound footing in the travel business as head-leisure at Birla Viking Travels in 2004. However, with time he felt that he was ready to set out on his own and he attributes his confidence to take that risk to three people – his wife Purvi and his mentors, Vivek Gupta of Amigo Travels and Pravin Shah of Shree Harshil Tours and Travels. “My wife has been in this industry since 1998 and has a strong knowledge and experience of the industry. Gupta and Shah gave me the much needed moral support and confidence to start out on my own, as there were many in the industry who ignored me when I quit my job at Birla’s,” he says. They started in April 2010 in a small office with just a table and chair, provided by his cousin Darshan Sheth, over the years Sunday Pure Holidays has evolved as a credible brand within its space headquartered in Mumbai.

Speaking about the decision to enter the luxury travel business, Jhaveri reminisces, “Five years ago during the recession, it was a tough decision to start our own business and I must admit I was scared. But today I think that the decision was good. Sunday Pure Holidays is a different concept, we are all about luxury. Our main USP is that we believe in the personal touch and go that extra mile to understand our client’s needs and requirements.” With the rise in spending capacity of the middle-class, luxury travel business has rapidly started evolving in India. As many new players are entering the luxury segment, there has been cut-throat competition.

Speaking about the competition, he stresses, “In the luxury segment, I think there is no competition for us. Competition is good and so are your critics. They help you only to grow further. If there is constant innovation, clients are ready to pay happily. We generally tie-up with DMCs who do not cater to the India market. This is what makes us unique and cuts off the competition. We try to provide a different experience to every client. In all our trips, we try to create some ‘wow factor’, which helps us get repeat clients. Today we are just a small cub, moving steadily we will make it big one day.”

Pure personalisation

The term ‘luxury’ is different for every client. Here personalisation comes into play. Purvi Jhaveri says, “We first do a background check of all the data available of our client list. This helps us understand the minds of our clients. Then we try to cultivate experiences according to their choice and preference. I think the first meeting with the client is more like a psychologist; we need to understand the mind of the customer. We first work like a counsellor, next we check the budget. We sell packages exclusively for the leisure segment; our core segments are the FITs, couples, etc. We also have special packages like gastronomy tours, full moon party experiences and most importantly we also offer Ferrari car drive experiences in Italy as we represent Ferrari drives in India.” She further adds, “Some of the most popular destinations for our clients include Scandinavia, Russia, Fiji, Bora Bora, Australia, New Zealand, and many more. Luxury travel mostly works on repeat clients and the references and feedback they give about us.”

Into the future

The scope of the travel and tourism industry is wide ranging; it is an industry comprised of numerous sub-industries. Transportation, accommodation, food and beverage, amusement, recreation and services, all form the backbone of what is collectively referred to as the travel and tourism industry. He says, “Together, this single industry produces over 10 per cent of the world’s GDP. In one-way or another, it touches almost every individual in the developed nations. Travel and tourism, along with telecommunications and information technology, will lead the 21st century economy in terms of growth and absolute revenue production.” He adds, “The Indian travel industry will see changes in the future, taxation-wise and market-wise. The key to survive will be to cater to small markets but with stability, rather than go behind the larger groups. It is very important to understand your market. To make our brand visible and enhance our service, in the future we will attend all the luxury events as this will help us to understand the market even better. The company has a clear vision for the next five years and is confident to get bigger by 2020.”