Source: Kazi Tahsin Agaz Apurbo

Kashef Rahman studied in Udayan School and moved on to Notre Dame, for college. After completing his HSC, he enrolled into North South University to study Economics. After completing his Bachelor's, Kashef joined Grameen Phone and worked there for 1 year. He then shifted to Banglalink and ended up working there for seven and half years.

 “I was always into travelling. As a matter of fact, everyone in my office sort of knew me as the 'traveller,' and they would always come to me to help them with their tours and packages,” says Kashef. While being flooded with questions about touring, Kashef planned on opening a travel blog where he could answer everyones' questions and help them with planning their trips.

“At one point, the requests kept pouring in so much that I planned on opening up a service. I opened at Facebook page in the name of TBBD (Travel Booking Bangladesh) where I would give people the best trip advice that I could, and link them with packages, for a small service charge for myself,” continues Kashef. There was no fixed cost to his services, but the fact that this venture was very profitable was unquestionable.

 “I thought of this being an excellent business but I still wasn't sure whether I was just getting lucky. So I kept TBBD on a low profile for a while and started concentrating on my job at Banglalink more, a trial and error process,” says Kashef

Shortly after, Kashef left his position at Banglalink, and set up a new office in Banani for TBBD. He made a trade license, got two hotline numbers, made a Google Doc with a format and turned this into full-fledged business.

 “I hired an accountant, some runners, travel consultants and we are now working with an 11-man team, which we are hoping to increase soon, as we get bigger” says Kashef.

According to Kashef, getting the trade license or setting up his office was not really the difficult part. “I had the most difficulty when it came to striking up a deal with the Civil Aviation. There are a lot of taxes to pay and lots of procedures and expenditures I had to go through.”

Source: Kazi Tahsin Agaz Apurbo

TBBD now offers outbound packages for people to travel all over the world. They are, right now, very strong with travellers going to Nepal, Bhutan and recently, the Maldives. “We try and make our clients' trips as enjoyable as possible within reasonable prices,” says Kashef. The packages can also be customised according to the customers' needs. “Right now, we are working on developing a website where people can also make inbound deals and people from across the world can come and visit Bangladesh. There will be packages, vouchers and hotels that you can pay for with your local debit or credit cards and the rest will be up to us!”