A Tale of Two Travellers

By Shreyasi Singh

Armed with a seed fund of Rs 10 lakh, Suchna (L) and Yogi set up shop in their Bandra home and sent 60 people on holiday in their first year. Today, they handle around 400 itineraries annually.

For Mumbai-based Yogesh “Yogi” Shah and his wife, Suchna, life is almost the fairytale that many just dream of. They backpack through quaint European towns, quirky international festivals, and wander off the beaten track to varied lands and cultures. And they do this more than half a dozen times a year.

What’s more—this is all in a day’s work for this enthusiastic couple. The Shahs run The Backpacker Company, a unique do-it-yourself travel consultancy that wants to convert sightseeing tourists into explorers, and Away & Beyond, their new venture in the same space.

It’s a smart mix of business and pleasure. Over the nearly six years they have been running the company together, Yogi and Suchna have advised more than a thousand people on customised—often backpacking—holidays that go beyond must-see tourist spots across Europe, the Far East, Africa, Egypt and Turkey. They also work the international festival circuit, organising trips around the famous Oktoberfest in Germany, and the Cologne Carnival and the Tomato Fight in Spain.

The couple’s friends and family aren’t surprised that the Shahs run a travel company. “The travel bug bit me when I was very young. My parents would pack me off on these packaged holidays during school vacations,” says 36-year-old Yogi. But it was a two-month backpacking holiday around Europe, post college, which exposed him to the real charm of travel. This one was nothing like his earlier trips—for one, there were no time boundaries around his itinerary. “No one told me how long I could stare at a monument, or how much time I could spend on a meal,” he recalls. The feeling stayed on at the back of his mind until 2004, when the husband-and-wife duo glimpsed a business opportunity in trying to make the experience work for others, too.

“We wanted our travellers to experience what we had—to explore, not just sightsee,” says Yogi, who worked in his family’s logistics business before venturing out on his own.

As a flight attendant with Singapore Airlines, Suchna, too, had explored the new cities she’d constantly find herself in. Before they founded the company, Suchna and Yogi had, between them, extensively holidayed across the world.

“Even when we weren’t married, friends, or friends of friends, would ask us to help them plan their trips. We loved doing it. One day, we thought we might as well make money from doing this,” laughs 33-year-old Suchna, who moved back to Mumbai after five years of working with the airline in Singapore.

Armed with a seed fund of Rs 10 lakh (rustled up with help from friends and family), and many, many happy travel memories—the “real know-how and capital” for the business—they set up shop in their Bandra home, and would hop across to the nearest coffee shop for client meetings. In the first year, they sent 60 people to Europe and New Zealand, and have steadily grown by more than 100 per cent every year since. Now, they handle around 400 itineraries every year and have a turnover upwards of Rs 1.5 crore. Though work space has shifted to a decent-sized office in Andheri, accommodating 12 fulltime employees, the couple still do much of the research themselves. Yogi and Suchna say they have never advertised, and their name has travelled to their target audience, mainly the 20-40 age group, through word of mouth, and media write-ups “now and then”.

Of course, there have been low days. “It still feels terrible when we get calls and people ask us about backpacks. They think we sell bags,” exclaims Suchna. But, the high of seeing people discover themselves on trips makes it all worth it, she adds.

Even as they navigate through these experiences—and through country maps, road networks and bus schedules—the easy camaraderie between the couple, now parents to six-year-old Ariyana and two-year-old Agastya, is more than evident. There are plenty of laughs, jokes and good-natured ribbing. But, has taking the home to office, and making the office a part of the home decor really been such an effortless expedition?

According to Yogi, the trick is to make the differences count. “Suchna is very meticulous. So, she handles the back end, number crunching, and administration. I handle marketing and branding. We do, however, sometimes step on each other’s toes,” he admits.

“There are times when we want to strangle each other,” Suchna pitches in. “Our staff knows by now that when one of us has an arched eyebrow, it’s a good idea to steer clear of our cabins.” Keeping the bedroom and boardroom from intruding into each other was tough at the beginning, and even now it’s something they work on consciously. For example, there is no decision-making talk done at home. “When you are home, you are home,” says Yogi.

“You are together so often that you tend to take each other for granted. If I’ve had a rough day with the kids, I sometimes take it out at him at work too. All our responsibilities need to be split half way and when that doesn’t happen, you do get hassled,” says Suchna. She, however, concedes that her husband is far more “chilled out” and is the one to lead the making-up process. “He has a fabulous sense of humour. At the end of every fight, he comes to me and says ‘I forgive you’ even when he’s been at fault!”

Yogi confesses there are disadvantages to working together, but says you have simply got to weigh what you have. “Wouldn’t you rather travel with your wife and spend this much time with her than anybody else?” he asks, pointing out that a trip to Finland they took earlier was also “their best holiday together”. The constant travel hasn’t yet worn down the wanderlust, with the duo looking forward to someday backpacking across South America, a long-time dream destination.

For now, the partners in life and business are getting ready to enter another marriage of sorts. “We want to be India’s number one experiential travel company in the next five years,” says Yogi. For that, the company needs a capital infusion of Rs 3 crore to Rs 5 crore.

“When we started, we didn’t think we would need money from outside. But, we are talking to angel investors now. We need financial backing to grow. But, that’s also like a marriage. Your thoughts need to be aligned,” he adds.

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