Subhash Motwani
Subhash Motwani is Chief Faculty cum Director of RBCS GROUP and Editor of leading monthly OPPORTUNITIES TODAY since 1988. Additionally, as travel has always been a passion being a travel trainer for over 21 years, Subhash started COMPACT TRAVELS as a destination specialist company and has qualified as a destination expert since the start of the tour company in 2004 for a wide range of destinations for the Indian outbound traveller. The destinations include Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary and Poland in Central Europe. Australia, New Zealand and South Africa in the Southern Hemisphere. Turkey, Israel and Jordan around the Red Sea and Spain and Scotland in Europe. In November 2008, Subhash created a website – the first of its kind for the Indian outbound traveller dedicated to one country – www.namasteturkey.com – Your Indian Connection to Turkey and later in April 2009, www.namastegermany.com – your Indian connection to Germany was launched. Subhash has been promoting other niche destinations in the Indian market ranging from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam in the Far East to Tahiti, Moorea and Bora Bora Islands in the Pacific and in 2009-10 will be adding the Latin and South America destinations for the Indian outbound traveller.
As a faculty member, Subhash heads the IATA training department at IHCTM (Institute of Hotel, Cargo and Tourism Management) – which is the FIRST authorized training centre in the world out of over 210 IATA authorized training centres that offers 7 IATA qualifications comprising of all the 4 levels of the IATA/UFTAA programme; as well as the Air Cargo, Advanced Rating and Dangerous Goods IATA/FIATA programmes. To ensure quality goes with the training offered at IHCTM, Subhash is a certified QUALITY INSPECTOR from CITY & GUILDS, U.K. For a detailed list of qualifications, click on Curriculum Vitae.
Subhash's got interested in the field of Travel, when he attended a workshop course in Travel & Tourism under his father Mr. Shyam Motwani who is the founder Director of the 55 years renowned RBCS GROUP- a leading vocational training centre located in Mumbai that has trained over 200000 students in various career programmes.
His initial interest in travel began in 1986 when he first visited Europe for a holiday followed by an extended stay in London where he completed conversational courses in French and Spanish languages with ILEA (Inner London Education Authority). Subhash appeared for his first IATA/UFTAA examination around in 1988, the IATA/UFTAA Standard Course at that time and since then there was no looking back. He graduated in 1988 from H.R.College of Commerce and Economics and chose to get into the field of Vocational Training and Education in a full fledged way initially specializing in training candidates for the Travel and Airline Industry as well as foreign languages.
He started training a few candidates for the IATA/UFTAA course as soon as he completed the IATA/UFTAA Advanced Consultant Diploma in 1989 and devised simplified tests and question sets to ensure that candidates excel in the exams. At the same time, Subhash made frequent trips abroad to study Italian once again in U.K., French with the Université de Caen in France and later in 1993, Subhash completed the Nivel Superior in Spanish from the Instituto Español de Granada in Spain. Simultaneously, he had completed 2 years of Italian in Mumbai as well as pursued over the years German and elementary Japanese.
Subhash’s first interested in Cargo started when he did his IATA/FIATA Cargo Introductory course in 1990 as by that time RBCS GROUP was already training candidates for Cargo and by 1992, he became the youngest and highest qualified person in India to have completed 5 IATA qualifications including 2 IATA/UFTAA and 3 IATA/FIATA programmes. He received several invitations both from airlines and various agencies to work for them, however his passion in training and imparting quality education along with his interest of foreign languages continued relentlessly and in 1993, IHCTM was appointed as an authorized training centre to train candidates for the IATA/UFTAA programmes.
Seeing the excellent performance of candidates for the IATA/UFTAA programmes, IATA contacted Subhash to look at the possibility of training candidates for the IATA/FIATA programme and IHCTM became an authorized training centre to offer the IATA/FIATA Cargo Training in December 1994 and thus IHCTM became the first authorized training centre in India to offer both IATA/UFTAA as well as IATA/FIATA programmes under one roof. Since then students from IHCTM have excelled in their IATA/UFTAA and IATA/FIATA examinations and from a single subject of IATA, today IHCTM offers as many as 7 IATA qualifications. Later, students started identifying IHCTM as an institute setting global standards and every year IHCTM gets students from across the globe ranging from smaller towns like Bursa in Turkey, Santorini in Greece, Liberec in Czech Republic as well as places such as London, Dubai, Bahrain, Nairobi and literally from all corners of the globe. IHCTM thus reversed the trend of students going abroad for higher learning in tourism and airline studies and even today students come from various cities to experience quality training.
Subhash innovated and introduced unique programmes such as twin Airline Management diploma, Airline Trio packages and and to meet the everchanging requirements of the Airline Industry, two new programmes were recently launched – the Golden Travel cum Airline Plan which qualifies candidates in 5 or 6 internationally recognized diplomas in a span of 2 years which has a built in 1 ½ year experience and a foreign trip too, the first programme of its kind across the globe. In 2006, IHCTM under the auspices of Subhash introduced TACSA - Traffic Assistant cum Customer ServiceProgramme which meets the criteria required to meet the growing needs of the Aviation Industry. In 2007 IHCTM has introduced two unique programmes – TBM and TBMTA. TBM is the acronym for Tourism and Business Management and TBMTA trains travel agents and qualifies them to start their own tour department.
In 1999, Subhash was invited by IATA Geneva to do the Pilot Testing of the new 4 level IATA/UFTAA programme and he was one amongst 4 trainers from Asia and 14 around the world to have participated in this venture. Later in 2000, IHCTM became the FIRST authorized training centre in the world out of 210 IATA authorized training centres to offer as many as 7 IATA qualifications and in March 2007, has been authorized to offer 2 new IATA Aviation courses thus taking the tally of IATA qualifications offered by IHCTM to 9 – the highest offered by any institute across the globe. However, seeing the global downturn in Aviation, IHCTM voluntarily discontinued to offer the Aviation Courses and from June 2009, IATA too would discontinue offering the IATA/UFTAA Senior Management programme.
In the meantime, Subhash has also attended the British Airways Fares and Ticketing Trainers’ Workshop with Chameleon Training in London in 2002 and qualified to train these programmes and introduced the British Airways level 1, level 2 and level 3 IATA endorsed Fares and Ticketing courses in India. Since 2003, these courses were taken over by VIRGIN ATLANTIC and now are offered as the VIRGIN ATLANTIC Fares and Ticketing courses in India through IHCTM where students qualify for the IATA endorsed U.K. certification here in India.
Subhash today is still a key faculty member for the IATA/UFTAA Stepping into Management Programme as well as the IATA/FIATA Dangerous Goods qualifications and his training is lauded by the industry, especially the weekend courses where students come in from Pune, Nasik, Delhi, Baroda, Ahmedabad to attend once a week training at IHCTM for a duration of 3 to 4 months.
Subhash is ably assisted by a team of excellent in house teachers which includes his wife Vini who is also a certified IATA/UFTAA and IATA/FIATA instructor. Every trainer who is inducted by Subhash has to undergo rigorous teaching training programmes including quality checks to ensure that the same standard is maintained across all training programmes and all centres and thus is one of the secrets why IHCTM students continue to excel in their exams as well as their careers.
With IT becoming an integral component of travel industry, IHCTM, in 1999, introduced GDS and CRS training in Amadeus, Galileo, Sabre and Abacus in association with VIASINC, USA – a very reputed GDS company with over 20 years of training expertise in GDS.
Subhash is also an Editor of monthly magazine OPPORTUNITIES TODAY as well as contributes actively in the marketing and promotional strategies as well as introducing innovative tour packages for COMPACT TRAVELS. His training has ensured that students of RBCS are on the global map and it is always fascinating for him to meet some of his students working at various international airports as well as interact with students who are working in companies in India as well as abroad which not only include travel agencies , cargo companies but also leading airlines as well. The two recent additions to the range of options offered by Compact Travels and Subhash are the websites www.namasteturkey.com and www.namastegermany.com and in the next 18 to 24 months the plans are to launch a few more country specific websites for the Indian outbound traveller. The first ever initiative of its kind by any travel company in India.
Since 2004, he has developed COMPACT TRAVELS which is soon emerging as one of the most innovative destination specialized company which provide unique holiday experiences. The company is run by students of IHCTM which goes to show the spirit of sharing knowledge with new entrants in the industry which is the step in the right direction to create achievers in this highly specialized field. COMPACT TRAVELS in 2006 was also nominated for the Best Regional Outbound Tour Operator Award announced by Galileo and in 2007 COMPACT TRAVELS is once again nominated as the Best Outbound Tour Operator- Western Region for the ABACUS-TAFI Award. COMPACT TRAVELS is also the only company in India which is authorized as a destination specialist for as many as 12 destinations by tourism boards and trade associations. COMPACT TRAVELS is the first company in India to introduce exclusive packages to Central Europe including places such as Czech Republic and Poland as well as adventure experiences in Southern Hemisphere.
On the social front, Subhash has been over the years involved in exposing institutes who have been misguiding students through false promises and bogus foreign affiliations through his department called CRUSADERS. He is a member of ASCI (Advertising Standards Council of India) as well as life member of CGSI (Consumer Guidance Society of India) and he feels that the media is highly responsible today in marring the careers of students by focusing more towards raising advertising revenues and not bringing the facts in the open. Hence, he is compelled to run the CRUSADE department on a low key as the media support that was there in the 1990s in exposing unscrupulous institutes has gone down drastically due to the primary objective of publications raising revenues some times at the cost of the careers of students. This has compelled Subhash to regularly organize free career talks for students to enlighten them on right choice of careers and enlighten students about emerging career opportunities.
