Educational tours are a must in today's connected world. It is important to understand the global culture ­ both in terms of business and personal. However, conducting international tour is not an easy feat; it requires deep destination knowledge and local network apart from understanding the pre-requisites of the schools/institutions before sketching the plan. Leveraging these expertise to offer seamless educational tours is Mumbai-based Hana Travels. Established in 1997 by Himanshu Yogi (fluent in Japanese) and Chunghee Yogi Park (a South Korean national residing in India with expertise in Japanese, Hindi, Gujarati and English languages), the company specializes in crafting some of the most memorable educational trips to destinations like Japan and South Korea, apart from offering MICE and luxury holiday tours. It also has seasoned specialists who develop and offer customized educational tours to Dubai, Europe, Singapore, and US.

Leveraging its in-depth destination knowledge, Hana has successfully completed 50+ educational trips with more than 5000 students to Japan and South Korea alone. Having strong local network further helps the company plan and deliver a superior quality educational tour that is a unique combination of industrial visits, school/university visits, history, culture and fun activities. Heavily focusing on business and management themed educational tours, Hana arranges industrial visits to large

MNCs, SMEs, family managed businesses and more, across several sectors, including automobile, F&B, retail, services robotics, electronics, heavy industries, ship building services, and others. "We do not disguise and sell a tourist itinerary as an educational tour," clarifies Himanshu.

Personalization & Safety at its Best
"We take all measures necessary to never compromise on quality or safety of our clients. We make sure every educational tour provides the maxi-mum learning experience and is value for money," explains Chunghee. Hana believes in operating efficiently & professionally with crystal-clear transparency ­ from start to finish ­ once the pre-requisites are understood post discussion with clients. Hence its services cover visas, flight bookings, hotel reservations (three/four star), planning, sightseeing, school/university visits, industrial visits, local transportation, interpreters and meals.

We make sure every educational tour provides the maximum learning experience and is value for money

Before start of every educational tour, Hana briefs its clients about the day-to-day itinerary, clothes to be worn, information on weather & local food, major cultural differences and several other factors to ensure smooth conduct of the tour. Once on tour, Hana provides every valuable information in a timely manner using all its knowledge from the past experiences of handling such educational tours, taking personal care of each client from food preferences to every minute request, thus ensuring a memorable and positive experience that is value for their money & time. Further, avoiding trip assistants/freelancers for any of its trip, Hana ensures that one of the owners or senior executives always accompany the trip, which helps in taking on-the-spot decisions faster, especially in case of an emergency whilst travelling on international educational tour.

Firmly believing in the Japanese concept of Kaizen (continuous improvement), Hana takes feedback after every trip and tries to make small, constant improvements. It is currently developing a sub-brand called `EdXTours', which will target the middle and high school students of international schools PAN India. Additionally, it has also started more budget-friendly educational tours, where clients can arrange a combination of their own air tickets, local train transportation, hotels and others, while Hana will only look after arrangement of industrial visit or school/university visits. Going forward, it will expand its knowledge of destinations, especially in Europe like Germany, Netherlands, France and others.