Turning obstacles into opportunities
For Mamta Pall, the travel representation business had always been close to her heart, and she dreamt and had plans to start her venture and that’s how ‘Footprints Worldwide’ was established. Remarkably, she launched her business just less than a year ago, a daring business move during the pandemic. TTJ speaks with Mamta to know more about her new venture.
Mamta has completed close to two decades in the tourism and hospitality industry. She started with domestic hotels, and throughout her journey, she has been associated with several international as well as domestic hotel brands and has handled Global Sales Offices for many top brands too. She had the opportunity of working with some of the most wellknown travel companies in the business during the course of her career, such as SOTC Kuoni, TUI, and Uniglobe. Furthermore, she has experience of working with Tourism Boards as well.
When asked about her motivation behind launching FootprintsWorldwide, despite the travel industry struggling due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Mamta says, “FootprintsWorldwide is a company that focuses on not just providing sales and marketing solutions to hotels and resorts, but also positioning brands effectively in the market based on their unique features. Because of the current situation, we started with domestic hotels, a couple of boutique resorts and have now started signing up international brands too, into our portfolio. We will be looking at adding a few tourism boards into our product line too, and are also open to taking on the execution of roadshows and sales missions for companies on a project basis. We are in no hurry, nevertheless, we are extremely focused on our goals. My motivation to launch FootprintsWorldwide was mainly the fact that though I am well aware that COVID-19 showed us the worst phase of our lives, I also firmly believe that from here onwards, things will only get better in the future. Travel will boom like never before, in the coming years.”
The initial challenge for Mamta was to be able to have a mindset that could tackle the nuances of a new venture during completely uncertain times. She says, “Once someone adapts to that mindset, rest of the things just fall into place automatically.” Speaking of challenges, she further adds, “The main part of tackling the challenges posed by the pandemic is to remain resilient and calm. And I think that’s what each one of us has been trying our best to do. Plus, one has been promoting only the places where travel was beginning to start gradually. Keeping all these things in mind, it becomes easier to concentrate despite all the challenges that one faces.”
Currently,
FootprintsWorldwide represents
Desert Tulip Hotel & Resort in Jaisalmer, two properties in Kanatal, Uttarakhand, which are the 7 Hills Resort and Kings Paradise Resort. The other is the Omniyat Hospitality Management, which has three verticals, viz, Omniyat Tours, which is an incoming tour operating company that specialises in providing elite and luxury top-of-the-line products and services in Jordan and adjoining countries. The BookingWhizz Premium Hospitality Solutions is about CRM, Channel Manager, Booking Engine and more of unique products and services, while under the Omniyat Hotels Management, they manage multi unique categories of hotels and resorts.
As the pandemic ebbs, Mamta is looking for opportunities to enhance her business, as many hotels will be keen to seek services from companies like hers. They are already working in that direction and they are in discussions with a few brands and hotel companies and will be soon announcing some new additions to their portfolio shortly.
While the pandemic has its limitation on people’s movement and visitations, currently, they are reaching out to their clients and business associates over the phone, emails, and video calls. So, it’s still more of virtual interaction. However, Mamta says she has started stepping out for meetings and trade events now and has been interacting with a few key agents and operators.
Mamta’s agenda for 2022 is to enhance the visibility of their brand, as well as the brands that they represent. “The idea is to grow as well as to enhance the portfolio of FootprintsWorldwide, though we will look at quality products only. Part of the agenda is also to get some new products to showcase, and that will, of course, be a continuous exercise. I think the ultimate goal for any company is striving to be the best in the business, and at FootprintsWorldwide, we believe the same. As we move further in achieving our objectives, our ultimate goal is to strive towards making our brand the best in the business,” concludes Mamta.