Aashi Vel, Co Founder and Co CEO, Travelling Spoon
Aashi Vel is the co-founder and co-CEO of Traveling Spoon, a company that is changing the future of travel by creating meaningful travel experiences.
Podcast
Overview
Travelling in the 21st century is more about enriching experiences than just sightseeing. Every traveller has a unique outlook towards exploring a new place or region. While some might be interested in the ancient monuments and modern restaurants, others might want to sit back and enjoy the local essence of the place. Travelling is a way to escape our hectic lives. It is the forging of new friendships!Â
Today, The Brand Called You welcomes Aashi Vel, an exceptional entrepreneur from Seattle, USA. Aashi is the Co Founder and Co CEO of Travelling Spoon- an organization that is creating meaningful travel experiences. She’s an industrial designer and patent holder.
In this very interesting episode, Aashi shares her amazing story with us. From industrial designing to travel and then to cooking, her journey is exceptionally unique and enriching. Unable to find authentic and local Mexican food on a trip to Mexico, Aashi sowed the seed of her venture Travelling Spoon. An organisation that could help travellers and explorers get an authentic experience of the regions they visited. Her plan includes connecting the travellers to welcoming hosts/locals. This helped the traveller learn up closely about the local culture and cuisine. It also helps the hosts to share their culture and even generate profits.
Aashi’s venture has helped forge new friendships and build memorable experiences all around the world. She discusses the big impact of the pandemic on her business. She shares that the pandemic also led her to start online cooking classes. Where people could virtually meet people around the world and learn to cook their local cuisine.Â
Aashi’s journey has been incredibly enriching for everyone associated with it. She is driven by experiences and is inspired by the sheer beauty of nature!
Tune in to know more about her work and the amazing stories she shares with us.
Profile
Aashi Vel is the co-founder and co-CEO of Traveling Spoon, a company that is changing the future of travel by creating meaningful travel experiences. Traveling Spoon provides travelers with private, authentic food experiences, from homemade meals to cooking classes, in people’s homes around the world. The company has been featured in the NY Times, TIME magazine and Forbes as the future of culinary tourism.Â
Most importantly, the company has meaningful impact, not only on travelers but also on their hosts that are enabled to become micro-entrepreneurs, earning an income doing what they love. When the pandemic hit and travel came to a stall, the company pivoted quickly to also offer online cooking classes which have since taken on a life of their own. An industrial designer and patent holder with a deep passion for problem-solving, Aashi has designed several award-winning consumer and medical products while working at design consulting firms for over a decade. She is a magna cum laude graduate of the Savannah College of Art & Design and received her MBA from UC Berkeley. Aashi is also on the Board of Directors at the World Food Travel Association.
