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Sunil Santani

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Sunil Santani

Director

Deluxe Travels

Ensuring success

Deciding what to do in life is a very difficult task.Most people never make this decision at all.
But since we all end up doing something in our lives, if we don’t make this decision consciously and correctly,
then an unconscious decision will be made which will affect our future. Since Childhood, I was ambitious
and wanted to achieve something in my life as my thought process was very clear from the beginning.
I believe that positive thoughts and approach towards people and situations greatly impacts the wellbeing
of the person. There are various people from different aspects of life who will and continue to test your
patience each day. "Smile and have patience" is the virtue which was taught by my parents and I simply
continue to implement this throughout my life. Also showing and giving respect to people, big or small,
will help in you earn respect from them in return and success in life.

My strongest skill

I believe we all are built for success. In my career so far, I am lucky to interact with human resources managers and CEOs of firms and companies who have established a reasonable number of qualities and skills in them. By interacting with them, I realised that we all should possess and implement a considerable amount of those qualities in our lives to be successfull which will further enable us to execute our profitable business.

My Strongest Professional Skills are Discipline, Determination, Right attitude, Goodwill, Optimism, Sociability and Stability.

Having a positive attitude is an important step for achieving the performance and the productivity desired. I believe we should all be disciplined. This includes the ability to perform tasks and projects without being bored or tired.

Couple of years from now

In India today, Tourism is not promoted the way it should have been. Look at destinations like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Hongkong,New Zealand,Australia, Turkey and even Kenya and Tanzania. Each of them have a unique selling point and they are marketing themselves in a big way. Our country India has various unique selling points but lack in marketing and the ways and means of promotions. We even have all the infrastructure and the resources and we need to just market and promote tourism to its full value.

In couple of years from now, I definately see myself much more relaxed and happily satisfied that Yes India is at its peak of Tourism and our country has benefited greatly throught it.

Important decision

Till a couple of years back, The Travel Industry used to work on a business model where Technology was playing a minimal role in it.

Since 2002, The boom and ripples the technology created have contributed and changed the way we as a Travel Partners should look and do business. Our Travel industry continously should embrace technology and I am glad that I took this decision few years back much earlier than my competitors thanks to my software background. This helped me to take positive decisions regarding techhnolgy and the know-how of how our Travel Industry can colabrate and benefit out of it.

Secondly I took the decision of expansion of my Travel Business into other areas like Hotel Reservations, booking of Holiday Packages and Cruise Reservations. Initially we were only into booking of Air Tickets, but I believe that embracing technology had triggered my decision to expand my business into other aspects of Travel.

Qualities needed to become a successful leader

The first essential quality required in a leader is integrity. Integrity is something that explains a person's inner values and a person's integrity is displayed through his outward actions. People tend to respect leaders that display good integrity. It is a character trait that is hard to develop, but is often developed from childhood on.

Secondly, A Leader has to be a Role Model. He/She has to be the kind of person that everyone else looks up to and wants to be like. We all must always be sensitive to the fact that everything we say or do greatly impacts the people who report to us or look up to us for guidance. A positive remark from you to someone over whom you exert influence or control has positive effects. A negative remark or criticism has negative effects. Choose your words and your behavior with care.

Lastly, A Leader has to be Confident. There maybe Good Days and Bad Days in business.This is true with any business, large or small, and the most important thing is not to panic. We must all Keep up our confidence level, and assure everyone that setbacks are natural and the important thing is to focus on the larger goal.

Influenced by

My Mother is and will always remain the biggest influence in my life. She taught me to be a go getter, and be confident in whatever I do in life. My Father who was an Advocate of High Court, is still working happily even though he is now 77. He accompanies me in my business. My father still has that very acute foresight which I am still learning how to implement his skill of foresight in my life. My parents have always been an enormous impact on my life.

Important lesson learned

"Never Give Up" and "Follow your Passions to do whatever you are inclined to do" are the two most important lessons I have learnt in my life.

Degree that I recommend

In Travel Industry, if a person wants to make a career, he/she has to complete education and also have a certification in IATA course. This course will enhance their basic knowledge of Travel and help them to apply the same knowledge in work and gain experience from it. Without the certification, one will definately find it difficult and time consuming to understand the codes and languages our various booking systems use and implement.

Initiative to develop a country

I truly believe that we all should complete our education and this inturn will help India to have a complete 100% literacy in our country. This will further make people understand our voting rights and the right kind of governence India should have. Its a cycle and the all the positive things will fall into place. We will have people with amazing civic and moral sense, which will inturn help our tourism and all other various industries and sectors to grow and increase the economy of our country.

My family background

My Family consists of my Father Mr Bhagwan Santani, My 2 elder sisters Mrs Deepa Rajkumar Sawnani who is presently settled in
Spain, Mrs Poornima Ajay Sharma whos is settled in Mumbai. My wife Mrs Neetu Santani is an amazing woman who I am blessed to have married to. I still tell her that she is my stress buster. My 2 lovely daughters Aanchal Santani and Srisha Santani are the best gifts God has given me. My Mother Mrs Devki Santani has passed away and I continue to truly miss her.

My role model

My role model is Sachin Tendulkar. His dedication, his strong willness, his ability to take critism with a pinch of salt, he takes responsibility and is calm and composed. His skills will continue to inspire me throughout my life.

Thoughts on Education system of our country

Education has been a problem in our country. We have established IITs, IIMs, law schools and other institutions of excellence; students now routinely score 90% marks so that even students with 90+ percentage find it difficult to get into the colleges of their choice; but we do more of the same old stuff.

Creating a few more schools or allowing hundreds of colleges and private universities to flourish is not going to solve the crisis of education in India. And a crisis it is, we are in a country where people are spending their parent’s life savings and borrowed money on education and even then not getting standard education, and struggling to find employment of their choice. In this country, millions of students are victim of an unrealistic and mindless rat race.

The quality of education in India can be improved by focussing on skill based education.Our testing and marking systems need to be built to recognize original contributions, in form of creativity, problem solving, valuable original research and innovation. If we could do this successfully Indian education system would have changed overnight.

My achievements

Last Year on 14 September 2012, I became a member of BNI (Business Network International) and this is I think my biggest achievement that I am proud of. BNI is a business and professional networking organisation whose primary purpose is to exchange qualified business referrals. After joining BNI, I made friends for life and I can happily boast that these are the very people that will stand with me in my good times and my bad times. BNI has helped me to see the way I do my business in a different perspective. Mr Vikram Mathur has been a huge role model here and I am 100% sure that various members of BNI including me are proud of him and look upto him in future. He is a mentor, a friend in need and a greatest inspiration.

Brief description about me

I have seen the best of both Professional Worlds: Service & Business. I completed my Engineering Degree from Thadomal Shahani Engineering College in the year 1998. Immediately after that I wanted to prove myself and I started working in a software firm as a software professional. After a few transitions, I joined Accenture Services Pvt Ltd and worked there for 5 years with a total experience of 8 years in software industry. All along, I wanted to setup and do something of my own where I can be the desicion maker and execute business. I bid adeau to Software Industry and jumped to Travel & Tourism Industry as I had an inclination and happiness to make people travel and see the world. Different countries have rich and varied culture with India being the pioneer amongst them. I believed and still continue to that a person should go through lot of hardships in life and experience to be able to become a sucessful leader and a great businessman. In this journey, I met a beautiful lady who is not only a great humanbeing but also my soulmate. I am honored that I married her and she is my lovely wife Neetu Sunil Santani.