Shobha Mohan, Founder, RARE India
Where ever I stand today is the sum total of my experiences. I have embraced every assignment that life has thrown at me with a savoir-faire that comes from trusting myself and the universe around me.
Podcast
Overview
In this episode, Ashutosh Garg converses with Shobha Mohan, Founder, RARE India. Shobha is a Zoology graduate who pursued Journalism later on.
Shobha talks about her early life and career. She talks about how moving to Delhi from Vizag turned her life around. Being a travel enthusiast, she talks about how she started RARE India, a unique travel company.
Shobha defines the term ‘conscious luxury travel’. She tells how the experiences are more important than the destination itself. Experience is ‘the new luxury’- she introduces the concept of ‘experiential hotels’.
Shobha explains how millennials are redefining travel and tourism. She addresses meticulously the hypothetical scenario of becoming the minister of tourism. She talks about sustainability in the travel industry. Before concluding, she talks about her learning from her biggest failures.
Profile
Where ever I stand today is the sum total of my experiences. I have embraced every assignment that life has thrown at me with a savoir-faire that comes from trusting myself and the universe around me. School and college life on the eastern coast of India was spent amidst a kaleidoscope of interests ranging from poetry and reading groups, cinema, dance-drama, music and mythology, story-telling, floor-art and volunteering for conservation and marine research. Providence led me to the arena of travel, or may be as the daughter of an officer in the Indian Railways that was my ticket to what I do now.
A stubborn, creative and independent spirit is what lead me to be an entrepreneur and my world flourished around unique and extraordinary travel. The result was RARE India – a representation, sales and marketing company that was right on the wing of what I call the travel renaissance. Today RARE crusades for owner run, visionary concepts and boutique says at palace hotels, conservation lodges, Spa and wellness retreats, nature bound hideaways featuring concepts like conservation, cuisine, experiential walks, riding programs, off-roading destinations, art for tourism etc. All of this focused on ‘Conscious Luxury Travel’ as a future ready idea that will drive innovation for travel and hospitality.
I am convinced that it is the youth and children who can power change globally. A three year stint as a consultant with a student travel company designing transformative programs that I instinctively curated added fabulous insights to be shared with students from around the world. Time spent with children and youth, touched by their innocence and enthusiasm was another personal lesson that I carry around as I continue to look for any opportunity to engage with children and youth. Beautiful Planet an InstLIVE chat on every Friday @yshobawanders fuels this belief in children and youth further as they reach out and speak their minds.
A fellow presenter on the Conde Nast Traveller Travel Summit in New York city once told me that one look at me and he thought to himself – ‘she knows’ and it was this instinct for a new kind of ‘meaningful’ travel, of people and places, of inclusiveness and gentility that formed the core of ‘RARE’ and everything I do. And so it is till date.
