Post College Italian American Francesco followed many of his peers into the World of Investment Banking with roles in New York and London. Always a keen networker a chance interview in Ecuador on the same day of his wedding subsequently saw Francesco and new bride Brigit relocate to South America from London with Francesco given the opportunity of running a telecoms company.

Faced with a tough business climate beset with politics Francesco was transferred to head up the small boat cruise division with a fresh license overseeing the Galapagos Islands.

With the Peruvian and Ecuadarion economies booking and Francesco getting restless - a vacation discussion with his father in law Fred saw the ideation of Aqua Expeditions with the maiden launch of Aria Amazon just 9 months later. Despite the global financial crisis the launch was highly successful with the offering of luxury, design, great culinary and authentic destination experiences though leading guides proving to be a winning formula.

With Aria Amazon firmly established Francesco looked East, setting up a global HQ in Singapore and launching boat #2 - The Aqua Mekong. 12 years later Aqua Expeditions have grown to 4 boats with the launch of Aqua Blu and Aqua Nera.

This story captures Francesco's relentless energy, passion and entrepreneurial spirit and gives some insights into his views on hotels, restaurants, safari lodges, destinations as well as how he approaches management and leadership.

Following on from the first episode Pariva talks in intricate detail about her time at Marriott which saw growth from 6 to 40 hotels in India. Pariva & her team were responsible for completely changing the hotel selling landscape in the country via many India firsts: the first Marriott showcase, the opening hotel pathway, the first full sales team incentive plan as well as many new brand introductions to India. 

Pariva was subsequently headhunted to join hotel giant Hilton and to recruit and build a World Class Sales organization from the ground up. Her mandate was to create an enviable sales legacy and to create and build something new – she certainly successfully did that and she explains in detail the strategy and tactics she employed.   

Pariva then talks about her move with Hilton to the Asia Pacific Head Office in Singapore and her focus in relation to driving meetings and groups business and initiatives  in her strategic leadership role. Pariva also gives her view on diversity in the India and global hotel arena and gives some views on how female role accession can be improved.   

The pod concludes by seeking Pariva’s opinion on inbound itineraries to Incredible India, her post-Covid vacation plans and her guide to where one can find the very finest Indian cuisine in Singapore. 

In this enthralling episode Pariva talks about her early career and formative years in India. 

Hailing from a small town equidistant between Delhi and Jaipur in Rajasthan, Pariva followed in the family tradition in attending boarding school at the tender age of 4 and a half, to ensure she was recipient of the very best education possible.

The passionate delivery of a career counselling session by a visiting lady hospitality professional when she was in year 8 resonated strongly with young Pariva and set her on her journey.

Post Convent School and fully supported by her family, Pariva signed up to Mangalore University, specifically spending 3 years in Manipal. Following the best 3 years of Pariva’s life it was time to enter the world of work. Her early mantra was that: “Discipline and dedication are here to stay” and “bring the best version of yourself to work each day”. 

A productive management traineeship with International Travel House which included many shifts from 20.00 in the evening till 04.00am concluded with Pariva determining that her path was to be via sales and marketing as opposed to operations. 

The episode concludes in Delhi with Pariva sharing insights, learnings and experiences from her progressively senior roles across some of the world’s top luxury hotels and brands and their growth in India. The luxury training was particularly technical which included the presentation of business cards, in-depth understanding of design, wine and how to sell rooms north of $800 per night through storytelling. 

Another few soundbites encapsulate these years perfectly namely:

“I stuck my heels into the ground and said, I am not giving up!” and on the power of networking – “I constantly reminded myself – people need to know Pariva, they need to know me!” 

The Anand story is one of tremendous success from modest origins. Dev and his brother Ranjit setup Expotel in the early 70s and by the time they sold it two decades on it had a turnover in excess of £100m. 

Expotel was the first hotel booking agency globally and with a slight degree of serendipity, its foundation coincided with London opening scores of hotels off the back of the Tourism Act transforming it from a sellers to buyers market almost overnight. In addition to favorable market conditions Expotel managed to dramatically increase their business marketly through buying one of the UK’s first telephone numbers when a US company IRL retreated from the UK market despite having conducted a year long campaign in the Evening Standard promoting the very number that Expotel purchased. 

Other pioneering business practices included the inception of the corporate rate, the London hotel wallchart, the foundation of the Hotel Booking Agency Association, commission on catering bookings and many more. 

Dev was also one of the first adopters and sellers of corporate hospitality and he tells the tale of how this started and its transition from sketchy cash in hand deals to the purchase of Keith Prowse, complete with Royal Warrant which still today remains a leader in global corporate hospitality from many groundbreaking innovations started by Dev. 

Dev reviews some of Impetus Marketing’s stand-out successes and concludes by talking about how business has been for the past decade as an active hotel broker through his company The Hotel Property Team. 

The episode contains Incredible insights and anecdotes which span five decades and with no sign of slowing down, debonair Dev continues to be at the heart of the industry – continuing to liaise with hotel buyers, sellers, agents and development professionals with his trademark humour and eye for a deal. 

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This episode of Untold follows the early career of one of New South Wales’ best exports, Mr Andrew Hughes. Andrew talks extensively around some of the experiences and learnings that shaped his approach to business and indeed career. A recurring theme throughout is Andrew’s love of storytelling and the importance he places on it.    

Andrew truly caught the travel bug as an 18 year old. Skillfully winning a place on a Rotary exchange programme, and financially supported by his proud pom parents with extra spending money from shifts at his local McDonalds, Andrew headed off to spend time in Northern Germany. During the early weeks of the exchange, the highlight of each day was the noise of the letterbox, triggering a Pavlovian-like response from Andrew as it meant fresh letters from family and friends had arrived to help combat his homesickness.   

A post Uni exchange to Southern Germany was followed up with a full European Tour consisting of bar jobs as well as becoming a professional tour guide spinning yarns about some of Europe’s most prominent Cities before making it back home to Australia. Andrew also talks about how he almost became a Travel Presenter and a household name across the region – the tragic events of 9/11 putting the kai bosh on this. Australian TV’s loss was definitely hospitality’s gain.   

Andrew talks about his early days as a hotelier with Best Western and how his career changed gears when he joined IHG Australasia in a business development role. 

Then Dubai came calling – Andrew joined Atlantis Dubai and in this career defining pre-opening role was ideally placed to hone and develop his love of storytelling taking it to the next level. With Atlantis the Palm successfully positioned and launched, Andrew teamed up with Mike Scully at Seven Tides. 

This edition of Untold is with luxury travel market and community builder, Serge Dive. 

Serge talks about his early career and how after studying Financial management at the university which should have led him to a career in Investment Banking, he joined the Ministry of Finance to hold a wide variety of international events promoting France’s many greatest exports including, fashion, technology and french gastronomy over the globe. 

Following such a successful event in the UAE, Serge was headhunted by the Government of Dubai and became a Deputy Director in Paris where continued success led to the Government asking Serge to also take up the reigns for promoting Dubai Tourism. With Serge’s passion for pleasing people the move into the travel industry was inspired.  

Amongst the travel landscape, Serge spotted a gap in the market and with both the vision and fortitude launched what has become an iconic show – ILTM on the Cote D’Azur in Cannes. Following the show’s tremendous success, Serge expanded the show taking it to Shanghai with ILTM Asia in 2008. 

Following the sale of ILTM to Reed, Serge did not slow down and has become even more prolific with successful shows under his company banner This is Beyond including: LE Miami, We are Africa, Pure Life Experiences and Further East. Serge covers all of these shows with tremendous illustrative narrative and conveys with passion how these events are driven by purpose and how they have built genuine communities. 

Never standing still and always innovating Serge also talks about 2021 and the recent announcement of This is Beyond, Private Members Club called the House of Beyond (www.thehouseofbeyond.com) as well as hinting at 3 new events to launch – watch this space. 

Lynn grew up with travel in the blood – hailing from a services family, Lynn left the home counties as a young girl and spent much of her childhood and teenage years in Cyprus and grew up with a strong desire to see the World. 

Lynn spent time in the Middle East before realizing a goal and joining British Airways – a role which saw her maximize her travel concessions. Remarkably a chance meeting with a Hotel General Manager in Rio Di Janeiro led to a Hong Kong job interview – a shrewd observation from the interviewing GM put Lynn on the path to a PR career second to none. 

Lynn talks about her times and memories from pivotal roles at Hong Kong hotel institutions, The Peninsula and The Regent.

Lynn's meeting and partnering with Oxford Scholar and fellow PR professional, Paul Hicks was a masterstroke. Grebstad Hicks kicked off with a conference to announce Disney Hong Kong and saw many decades of sustained growth and client account wins all over the globe. 

Having left Hong Kong, Lynn is now based in beautiful Koh Samui – she continues to be a force for good and is relentlessly positive – her time currently firmly focused on the Island of Koh Samui and helping Villa and Tourism businesses on Post-Covid strategies. 

Today’s Untold talks with Nick Ray about Cambodia and a potted history of modern day tourism in this beautiful Country in South East Asia that has been faced with many political challenges and turbulent past in our lifetimes.

Nick talks about how first became aware of Cambodia via Blue Peter and following several visits post University made Cambodia a home. Having met his wife Kulikar Sotho who had started a successful and growing tourism business with her mother, that business was Hanuman Tours. 

With journalist credentials, aptitude and considerable writing talent Nick managed to secure the first Lonely Planet Cambodia guide and has gone on to write over 50 travel book assignments.

Hanuman Tours has grown dramatically over the years and has in place a formidable network of tour operator partners around the globe ensuring that thousands of travelers every year have the best possible experience of their visit to the Kingdom of Wonder! 

Nick and Kulikar have also grown a significant film business which from a small scouting trip for a crew of 5 has grown to include Hollywood blockbusters documentaries, adverts, BBC, Discovery and National Geographic assignments. Hanuman Films also produced ‘The Last Reel’ which was Directed by Kulikar and produced by Nick and collected significant plaudits and awards on the festival circuit. 

For this episode of Untold I am delighted to welcome back Mr Mike Scully. Mike kindly was the first guest in the inaugural episode talking about the history of Barasti bar. The response was tremendous. At the peak, the podcast was being listened to by over 250 people around a day and showing the true global nature of the travel industry had been downloaded in over 103 Cities in the first 3 days and 1,000 downloads in the first week.

Post recording Mike and I heard from contacts and people we had not heard from in years and additionally I received scores of emails and questions for Mike that we did not cover in the first episode. This hour answers all these questions and more. During editing I have listened to this episode 4 times and each time have learned additional facts, theories or analogies that I missed initially – the biggest compliment I can play Mike is that I can seldom remember learning as many practical hospitality lessons in a short space of time – from Tiger Woods influence on golf course design, introducing molecular gastronomy to Dubai, the steps he would take to escape brand constraints to optimize a hotel opening in 2020. Enjoy – Beyond Barasti with Mike Scully