Zubin Karkaria, the chief executive of Kouni, began his career in Mumbai with a small travel company where his role was to escort Indian businesses to trade fairs so that they could find tools for printing and packaging their products. This unenviable job earned him Rs 2,500 ($37) per month. Twenty five years later his life has changed dramatically. His simple yet bold idea of processing visa applications on behalf of embassies has made him the head of Kuoni, the multinational travel conglomerate, after joining a tour company in 1991 which was absorbed by Kuoni later. Shuttling weekly between Dubai and Zurich, Karkaria describes his life as a rat race.
Like other traditional tour operators, the group faced stiff competition from online hotel and holiday comparison sites. In November 2015, a restructuring exercise by the company led to the loss of 350 jobs which means Kouni is much smaller than its competitors.
Since becoming the chief executive, Karkaria has been tasked to accelerate cost cutting and to focus on the profitable aspects of the business, i.e. visa processing. He was the natural choice to tackle this as 15 years earlier started the Visa Facilitation Service (VFS), which set out to tackle queues outside embassies worldwide by becoming the outsourcer for visa applications. From the company’s point of view the advantage is synergy as visa applications for different countries are processed in one place. From the embassies view an employee of VFS who used to work for say UKBA, there is less security risk and hassle because members of the public do not have to enter the embassies and consulates.
Under Karkaria, Kuoni will continue to scale back, what it calls global travel services unit, which sells package tours and transport to travel agencies. The operation has suffered due to the recession in Japan where it generates most of its business.
The group headquarters, currently in Zurich, will close. Its three subsidiaries including VFS, will operate from their own centres in Dubai, Zurich and London. Karkaria is also a Zoroastrian priest. Zoroastrianism emphasises on good thoughts, words and deeds is known to be disciplined as well as religious.
