They live, breathe, and dream about travel. Perhaps it’s no wonder than that their job is the perfect holiday – yours.

From planning a trip to visit all the famous watchmakers in Switzerland, a ‘guaranteed’ sighting of sakura blooms, to a solo backpacking trip around the world, they’ve done it all – planned it, that is to say.

For the founders of Quotient Travel Planners, Javiny Lim and Lim Hui-Juan, what started as a bit of fun ended up being a wonderful business opportunity.

“We love to travel and plan trips and we liked to plan other people’s holidays just for kicks. But it came to a point when our hobby started to interfere with our day jobs!” laughed Javiny, a former sales executive.

“That was when Hui-Juan and I sat down to think seriously about this as a business.” They roped in two other friends, Rufus Tan and Lim Weijiang and in 2007, the business took off.

Road bumps

As the first bespoke travel agency in Singapore, Javiny recalled the initial challenges.

“With no previous model to work on, we had to do a lot of things from scratch and get the processes and mechanisms right,” she said.

An engineering background came in handy (both Javiny and Hui-Juan are engineers by training), while media-trained Rufus and law-trained Weijian added their skills to the mix.

Weijian, known as Wei to his friends, recalled, “We started in a literal box of an office in Far East Plaza where we were breathing down each other’s necks.”

But their novel enterprise gained traction and May 2009 marks the second year of operations for the team – they’ve also moved to more spacious digs at Boat Quay (Ed: they have since moved to The Vertex at Ubi).

“We were confident in our business model,” said Hui-Juan. “It came from being good at what we were doing. We knew the product well, we had the passion for it and we had the skills to reach out to people.”

A different approach

The timing, Rufus added, was also spot-on. “With Singapore getting more affluent and educated, travellers are more discerning and moving away from packaged tours. They are seeking more intimate and personalised experiences,” he said. In the era of the experience economy, the offer of novel, memorable and meaningful bespoke travel fit that bill perfectly.

Practically, it makes sense to personalise a holiday as well, said Javiny. “We are aware that holidays are very precious and Europe is often a once-in-a-lifetime affair. So we work to ensure that people make the most of their trip.”

“But this doesn’t mean doing five cities in a week,” said Hui-Juan, but to maximise the time with special touches.

This sometimes takes some imagination and ‘daring’ to stray from the beaten path, said Wei, “We try to get clients to explore new things.”

By customising trips to reflect personal tastes and interests, vacations are more restful and enjoyable. Each client also gets a customised travel kit with country information, tour and food suggestions.

The team has customised holidays for more than 300 clients in the last 18 months since March. Given their unique business model, the team is optimistic despite the recession. “As a bespoke agency, we cater to a niche,” said Wei, “so in that regard we are recession proof.”

Ultimately doing what they love and having the autonomy to do it gives the team their motivation. “This was one way for us to do something we really wanted to do without anyone telling us we couldn’t,” said Rufus.

* This article was first published in Singapore Magazine (April-June 2009 issue).