Udayan Bose

OT: How does it feel to head India’s largest travel company?

Udayan Bose: It is a great challenge to lead one of the largest travel houses in India. It is an interesting business and very different from what I have done before.

OT: Does the job give you opportunities to travel extensively?

Udayan Bose: I do travel. Not any more than I used to before. As an investment banker, I was always on an aircraft. These days it is less.

OT: Which was your best holiday?

Udayan Bose: This has to be Kenya, where we went seven-eight years ago on a safari. The most exciting moment was when a full-grown cheetah climbed on top of our jeep and stayed there for 20 minutes. It was about two feet away from my wife’s face!

OT: What’s the best hotel you’ve ever stayed in?

Udayan Bose: Hotel Grande Bretagne, Athens, Greece.

OT: What do you need for a perfect holiday?

Udayan Bose: The mood, the weather are prerequisites, then all logistical arrangements need to be taken care of. A nice cosy hotel, a beach for a walk, a pool for a swim, good restaurants around. And I need my wife and children around me. That would be a perfect holiday.

OT: What do you always take with you?

Udayan Bose: Clothes, of course, toilet kit, some office papers (I feel kind of lost if I do not look at some document or the other, even if only for half an hour) plus my Vaio laptop to keep in touch with the world and the office.

OT: What’s your best piece of travel advice?

Udayan Bose: Each to their own — some like mountains, some the beach, some go to only one place and others keep hopping. One piece of advice is to travel light, make the most of the holiday for yourself and others around you. Another is to try local food. I see too many Indian travellers going all over the world and only wanting Indian food. The whole fun of it is to try and experiment.

OT: Where do you want to go next?

Udayan Bose: South America. Brazil during the carnival — wow ! But seriously there are two places I’d go back to always. One is Venice, the other is Mauritius. The first is romantic and beautiful, and Mauritius is peaceful, calm and gorgeous. As Mark Twain said, “God created Mauritius and then Paradise.”

OT: What was your worst holiday?

Udayan Bose: I haven’t had a bad holiday.

OT: And the worst experience on holiday?

Udayan Bose: I was once robbed in London, but after three days got my money back through insurance. Not really that bad.

OT: What’s the biggest packing mistake you’ve ever made?

Udayan Bose: These days you get chargers everywhere, but some years ago I did not have my mobile charger and the hotel did not have one either. Suddenly I felt out of contact with the world!

OT: What do you avoid on holidays?

Udayan Bose: Getting dragged into meetings and conference calls, which always sound like emergencies, but actually are not.

OT: What do you hate about holidays?

Udayan Bose: The amount of work one has to do when one gets back to clear the desk, pay for the holiday extravaganza, and the hard work of losing the weight one gains during the holiday.