Dr. Subhash Goyal, B.Com, MBA, Ph.D, is a doyen of the travel trade, Chairman of the STIC Travel Group, one of India’s largest GSAs (General Service Agents) and travel fi rms with branches spanning all major Indian cities. He continues to preside over the IATO (Indian Association of Tour Operators), having served as it’s President for more than ten years now. His 40 year old company today represents nine international airlines, three cruise companies and one of the world’s largest hotel chains. It maintains separate verticals for private air charters, student and youth Travel, and Euro car. It also has under it’s fold two IT ventures, viz., IT Solutions & Travia Technologies. NRI Achievers spoke to Dr. Goel to know what made him tick, and how he went about building his business-empire from scratch. And here is Dr. Goel, telling his story in his own words, and sharing his thoughts on the prospects for the Indian travel & tourism, civil aviation sectors in the present milieu …
Icame into this world on September 3, 1946, the sixth of 13 siblings, in a third-fl oor corner room of our house in Roshanpura of Old Delhi. My father, who was in the publishing and book-selling business, ran Delhi’s oldest bookstore at that time, the “General Book Depot,” on Nai Sadak. My birth proved fortuitous for my family, as we moved to Jawahar Nagar into a much larger house, near the University of Delhi soon aft er. I guess in many ways I was luckier than my elder brothers and sisters, as my father was better off than before by the time I came by, and it refl ected positively on our education and upbringing… “A restless soul from the start, I was as fond of food as I was of playing pranks, breaking things, climbing trees, and all the rest that goes into the recipé for a “naughty boy.” Of course in retrospect we all ultimately come to the realisation that it is unnatural for any hyper-energetic child to be a paragon of virtue, but I am told that sometimes my boundless energy was a cause of concern to my parents, if not exactly annoyance. So much so that my parents came to the conclusion that a healthy dose of external disciplining would be what’s good for me.
And so, at the age of fi ve, I was packed off to boarding school, to study at Convent of Jesus & Mary, at Hampton Court in Mussourie. Th is was to be my temporary home ‘until’ I became a ‘good boy,’ or so I was told. Luckily for me, my ‘penal servitude’ turned out to be blessing in disguise, and gave me a much fi rmer moral and educational foundation. “Five years on, I returned home to continue my schooling at the Delhi Public School, Mathura Road. While at school, my life-dream was to take up a career in the Army, and I even had an uniform made, before the need to wear spectacles put paid to that dream. Onwards I got into Sriram College of Commerce (SRCC) of the Delhi University, and completed my B.Com Honours course with a fl ourish, winning a Hora gold medal to boot. University life led me to student politics and I found I liked it quite a mite, with my propensity to lead from the front and my out-of-the-box thinking taking me up to leadership roles in the DUSU. My life-dream changed and metamorphosed, imbibing political hues. My target now became one of wanting to be the Prime Minister. Recognition for my good work as a student leader did fetch some overtures, through Yashpal Kapur of the Congress … but two things put paid to that: one, my own political leanings were anti-establishment and ABVP. Two, my father, a freedom fi ghter who was put in prison and subjected to torture by the Brits, forbade me any foray into politics. Full Stop. “Aft er graduation, I had this yen for a MBA. So I worked for it, even got selected. But then, realising my parents could hardly aff ord to send me to daycollege, I took up an evening PGDBM instead and put my best into it. DCM picked me up to be their management trainee, but I was pushed in a contrary direction by my professor Dr. A Dasgupta, who urged and exhorted me to take up an entrepreneurship option instead. “I chose to take a break, and all by accident, ventured into freelancing and romancing the travel domain. As a student leader, I was invited for an international student conference in Japan. The problem was the airfare. Going around from travel agent to travel agent, I found that if I could buy 15 tickets, the 16th will become gratis. Ergo! I got to work, organised a student delegation group of 16, and got my ticket for free. What’s more, I even earned a commission of INR 1000/- per ticket. Being a transparent and seeda-saada sort, I took my group into confi dence, and off ered to share half my commission with them. But most of them would not even hear of it. And so an idea took root and germinated, leadingto a few more adventures …
“Come 1970, I mustered up the guts to organise a charterload for Expo 70, which I managed to see through successfully, making a little more money in the process. In 1971, the UNESCO Conference on Youth Unrest came up and I was to be a delegate, where UNESCO would pay one way fare. All was fi ne until the venue for some reason was shift ed from Paris in France to Jerusalem in Israel. For me it then became a mission almost impossible, as India those days had no diplomatic relations with Israel. But I wanted to go so badly, that I somehow, don’t as me how, managed to get a special travel document issued, on which I flew TWA with a ticket upto London. Aft erthe conference, I went to London with my British University Union friends, but was initially refused entry as I had no return ticket. What with the intervention of the University Union, I did make it, and spent three months there apprenticing with the Student Travel Facilitation Centre at the University, learning the ropes of the international travel trade fi rst hand, before I returned to Delhi in 1972.
“On coming back, for a while I worked at my father’s bookstore as a salesman. Having to read all the books I needed to sell sort of broadened my horizon, and contributed further to my myriad life experiences so far. “Aft er mulling over the trajectory of my life over the past few years, I felt the time had come to make a clean break, and fi nally attempt something on my own, per Prof. Dasgupta’s advice. I mustered up my courage, approached Dr. Karan Singh, then Union Minister for Civil Aviation & Tourism. I put forth my proposition of wanting to set up an travel related institution for students, and appealed to him for both fi nancial and moral support. He reacted positively and encouraged me to found precisely such an institution, though my pleas for government patronage he turned down outright. But lend his own personal mite to this endeavor he did, and promised me that he will himself would personally come and inaugurate the venture. Both pleased and a bit disheartened, I planned the launch carefully for almost a year, in the interim continuing to assist my father in our bookstore. Finally, on the 14th of November 1973, STIC, or the Student Travel Information Centre, came up as a one-room establishment, and was inaugurated by Dr. Karan Singh. “I haven’t looked back since then …
“Th is is the untold part of my story that I have shared with you so far. What happened thence, and how STIC went from strength to strength to become what it is today, is all there in the public domain, I feel no need or urge to retell that part of the story.