ARJUN SHROFF is proud to be working for his daughters in one of the most dynamic travel agencies in the country.
Shroff is the managing director of Shroff International Travel Care Inc., a company that carries his name but is now being owned and run by his daughters Sheena and Kristine.
“Sheena handles outbound travel, while Kristine does the inbound. They are always giving me assignments to go here and there because I am jobless. They are the owners,” Shroff said.
It is this sunny disposition that is behind the success of Shroff’s travel business. Although he modestly gives the credit to his family, especially to his wife Emerita who hails from Carigara, Leyte, Imelda Marcos’s parents’ hometown.
Shroff is a British surname, and Arjun’s is the first generation in his family to have migrated to the Philippines.
Droves of fellow Indians from Bombay (now Mumbai) have initially flocked to the country in the years before and after World War II who have since engaged in trading, garments, electronics and watches.
“Some of them are still in Quiapo,” Shroff pointed out.
The long way around
“I came here in 1989 from Sindh, now called Pakistan, the Shroffs are bankers and appraisers of precious stones and they still continue their business, some in India, some in Pakistan,” Shroff said, while adding that they left everything behind.
“Ibig sabihin, wala na,” Shroff said in showing his proficiency in the local language.
Shroff speaks nine languages, including English, Indian, Arabic, Filipino, Punjabi, Sindi, Marathi, Gujarati and Urdu.
“Urdu is a little royal language. It is a rich language. It is a Hindi offshoot. Sometimes we get to talk in a little diplomatic way, but the British left us English, their greatest legacy. It opened the world to us,” Shroff said.
In 1985 Shroff married his Filipina wife in the country before going back to Saudi Arabia to get married in the Muslim tradition, and then to India to get married again as dictated by Indian ritual. His daughters were born in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War.
Shroff said there was a large concentration of Indians from Bombay in the 1950s but have since dispersed across the country. This is very much evident in the 32 Indian temples in Baguio, Pangasinan and Davao. He said they came from Mumbai and New Delhi.
Hard work leads to success
Shroff, a commerce graduate specializing in audit and accounting, started his first job with Marsman Travel before getting employed with then garment giant Crispa, with its old office on the corner of Makati and Sen. Gil Puyat avenues.
He then moved to the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which used to occupy what is now the Department of Foreign Affairs office.
Shroff said the two years he spent with the ADB, handling the travel itinerary of some of its diplomats, gave him the experience in booking and handling their travel arrangements, through American Express.
For four years in the 1990s, Shroff also started a tourism school—the Shroff International Enterprise.
“I used to teach Filipinos about travel agencies. We had 450 graduates coming from airlines, cruise ships, company owners,” Shroff boasts. It was also during that time when he established the Royal Class Travel and Tours in Manila.
“Ever since I left India I am already in the hotel and travel business in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia. I was arranging tour packages,” Shroff said.
In 1994 he established Shroff International Travel Care Inc.
His Philippine tourism outlook
Shroff, who is a board member of the Philippine Tour Operator Association, said even as online booking and other online-related activities are the rave these days, he believes that technology can only do so much.
“Whether in the sense that online has taken over hotels and airlines that try to sell direct at the end of the day, for me, we are in the business of touch,” Shroff said.
He added: “On the Internet, when something goes wrong, I cannot tell them I am angry. I punch the keyboard and nothing happens. No response. People will still be in the tour business, they are going to survive very well and, do good for the next 10 to 15 years,” Shroff said.
He said in United States people are going back to their travel counselors.
He added that technology should be allowed for the travel and tourism industry to progress but it should never be allowed to take over how people live their lives.
Shroff, a past director of the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce Inc., said the time is ripe to resume flights to India following the aborted Philippine Airlines (PAL) foray to New Delhi two years ago due to low passenger yield.
“Air India is looking for opportunity to connect to Manila, but travel slots or traffic rights are very difficult to get,” Shroff said, adding that an individual has to fly first to Hong Kong to get a Philippine connection.
“Now is the time to resume PAL flights. There is a lot of inbound tourists from India. I heard Cebu Pacific might fly to New Delhi. They want to come in because they are already flying into Australia and Dubai, so India is in between and, hopefully, they should be able to pick up some traffic,” Shroff said.
Shroff said there are 5 million outbound Indian tourists and India’s 80 international airports are easy to access since every city is directly linked.
“We are connected to Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and other Asean countries are connected by land and can easily count tourists in the millions,” Shroff said. Last year some 75,000 Indian tourists came to the Philippines and Shroff hopes this could be increased by several fold in the short term.
“I have no problem with any of my clients who are English-speaking, and a majority of Indian speak English so the merger of business is more relaxed. I love it. Filipinos are so cooperative and very giving when providing service,” Shroff said.
“And Pan India represents the Philippines in all of India’s 28 states. Every year we go to four-city tours in Mumbai, Nagpur, in Marahastra, then Lucknow in New Delhi for a wedding road show, then Amritzar in the north. These are beautiful cities that PAL had not touched in the past.”
He added that the key element to any travel is the types of food available.
“Imagine if you have a Filipino restaurant in India, you will be so happy,” Shroff said.
Shroff believes that presence of authentic Indian restaurants in Metro Manila, Clark, Subic, Bohol and Davao have been key in luring more Indian tourists.
The lack of infrastructure in the country has also not deterred Shroff in his confidence in the country’s tourism industry.
“Somehow all the tourist destinations are accessible, fortunately by boats, minivans and bus. You can get there if you have the will,” Shroff said. Shroff believes the Philippine tourism industry is moving toward becoming a sunshine industry, but cautioned the country should never be greedy and overly optimistic.
Image credits: Jimbo Albano