Transcript
Tom Marchant: 00:04
In the second part of our conversation with Annan Sharma, we step back from emotion and look at how he experiences the world. As someone who travels extensively for work, for family, and for curiosity, Annan approaches travel deliberately. He studies the details, the signals that build trust, the friction points that shape meaning. He believes luxury at its best should allow you to slow down rather than accelerate. Explore how he travels differently now than he did a decade ago. Why he protects his structure of time, why he bricks his phone when he’s on the move. Why a great guy can completely transform your understanding of a place. There are tangible takeaways here: how to avoid overshadowing your trips, how to build space for serendipity, how to notice the design cues that shape your experience, and how to see friction not as a flaw, but as part of the narrative. And how to do it with greater intention.
Tom Marchant: 01:00
So I’m delighted to be joined on the pursuit of feeling today by Alan Scharr, a good friend, futurist, incredible thinker who shapes and influences some of the most iconic brands in the luxury world today. Alan’s spoken beautifully and poetically about boredom and its role and the application in our lives and how we see it play out in travel. And now I’m going to just dig a little deeper into Annan’s world and his travel life. Hearing from someone who travels so much, um, I think I travel a lot, but when I talk to Annan, I figure I don’t. Um so I can’t wait to hear what Annan’s got to share. Annan, thank you for being back on. Absolute pleasure, always. Good. Um, Annan, you’re I like I’ve said in the intro there, you you travel so much. Um
Tom Marchant: 01:48
how do you travel, if you do, differently today than say you’re traveling 10 years ago?
Anant Sharma: 01:55
I think I was always saying get places 10 years ago. Um, and now I revel in the journey a lot more. And I think it comes with being a father and having a business and being a certain age and having a lot of demands on your time. But I I actually really enjoy the journey now. I mean the really functional parts of the journey. I really enjoy I break my phone when I travel now. So I basically turn it into a dumb phone, everything’s banned. And it means I don’t fill all the moments in between with pointless news or interactions that don’t really matter. So I’m a lot more connected. I’m also a lot more diva, I hate to say it, but um, I just don’t have the health span left to travel in a way that is uncomfortable. Um, I’m a bit more Ramoa and a bit less North Face.
Tom Marchant: 02:44
Um and uh I think I think I think I like I like the honesty, and I think also um I think in terms of I think it’s been DV travel so much, I think you’ve earned earned the rights to be a bit more Ramoa, bit less with no offense to to North Face and uh yeah, thank you, Ramoa. But I think um you you I was gonna ask you, but I think you touched upon
Tom Marchant: 03:05
it already. I mean, it’s something that I I try and do when I travel is build in sort of unfilled time into trips. I find that from going somewhere and every hour uh is accounted for and often it is, I worry that I I might not sort of get what I so often seek when I travel, which is moments to kind of connect with a place that doesn’t feel too prescribed, or that I just can wander with my thoughts and not be distracted. Do you? I mean, you talked about bricking your phone, but when you’re actually on a on a schedule into places, do you do you try and build unfilled time into your plans? Or is that is that hard?
Anant Sharma: 03:40
I I I’m quite a bit schizophrenic about it, actually. I I I’ve I’ve become, as I’ve got older, a lot more protective of my time when I’m away to allow for serendipity and to for to allow for flex. I’m I’m really like, you know, I sort of get my claws out when something’s going in and really evaluate whether it’s worth it. I think I’ve also can sometimes be a bit lazy, actually, like when I when I travel and just fall into just a bit of a sort of reverie, you know. Yeah. But I really appreciate those moments. When I’m on vacation, and when when I’m not just traveling for business and the times in between is like a byproduct of something that’s quite important and there’s like maybe a lot of stress before something and then a bit of a lovely like moment afterwards, which is like a sort of, do you know what I mean? Like, I’ve done the thing I’m here to do. When I travel and there’s a value attached to the travel, you know, like sort of, you know, time, you know, limited family vacation, money, you know, sort of when I made an an investment, you know, I I can try and mainline activities. You know, I I I’m a bit like I want to complete the game. Yeah. And and I’m always trying to find my own antidotes to that, you know. So, so I I can espouse certain virtues and how I believe one should travel. And I’m probably hypocritical to those, but I’m aware of them maybe to a greater extent because I’m quite indexed the wrong way. You know, I can’t I can be a bit like, fuck, I want to do it all. Do you know what I mean? I want to see it all. I need to like complete it all and tick it all off, you know, and it’s not the right way to be.
Tom Marchant: 05:15
It’s interesting because I, yeah, there was a question I was going to ask of like, you know, what do people get wrong, you know, when they travel? And it’s what else you can ask in that question is, well, ultimately, travels are yeah, I’m in the business of helping people get the most out of their travel experiences and and creating but creating experiences that are perfectly tailored for them and them alone, right? So it’s so you’re not following the crowd, you’re not doing something that’s packaged or or formulaic. But by default, that just means it’s it it there are so many different ways of people that people take to travel and what means something to them. You know, I think I’m I’m the same in that depending on where I am or my reason for being there, I’ll have a very different outlook on what what I want to do or what or how I want to approach that place. I mean, there are some places, and I won’t name them, that where there is so little in my eyes to in that place that interests me, whether it be culture because there’s a lack of culture or depth because of the lack of depth, that I actually relax if I’m by the pool of the hotel, because I’m not worried about the fact that I’m missing out on things because I don’t think there’s much there. Now that might be wrong, but normally it’s never a busman’s vacation for me because it’s my job, you know, to do it. And I’m just so curious that I want to be out doing it. And if I’m in somewhere in a place where I don’t feel I’ve really kind of turned over most stones or burn the skin, but like you can kind of see me, or my wife and people know me can see me sort of fidgeting a bit because I’m like, well, what’s what’s over there? But but equally I know I can go to some places, I’ll still have a nice time, but I don’t have to worry about that itch not being scratched, uh, because it’s not it’s not really itching, if you see what I mean. So but it just depends on where you are, and I think I’m framing it.
Anant Sharma: 06:57
Um, but I won’t No, I think I think like to summarize your point is when you go on a vacation where the purpose is relaxation, it can be deeply unrelaxing because you’re trying too hard to relax. Whereas when you go somewhere that that interests you less, the byproduct of the fact that you don’t feel there’s an expectation around your experience is ironically relaxation.
Tom Marchant: 07:16
Yeah, it is. I mean, relaxation comes in so many forms. It’s like relaxation sometimes is because you need to be distracted, you’re not thinking about at home. But relaxation also when calmly distracted is quite easy as well. Yeah, we’ve probably talked about that quite a lot.
Tom Marchant: 07:29
Um when you uh when you first arrive somewhere new in your travels, are there certain things that you’re you’re looking out for that you notice, you know, like what you know, into a new place, what things stick out in your mind or that always act as a marker?
Anant Sharma: 07:44
All the things that you think that shouldn’t be the things that stick out. So, so the flooring and the light switch and the ceiling, like in a funny kind of way, are markers of like of the spirit and design of a place, more so than the vista. I’m not saying I’ll become like desensitized to a beautiful vista, but that that those things are important and I know that they will slowly become a part of the play of my of my research.
Tom Marchant: 08:12
Is it because those things like switch is it because there are details reflect something greater about a place that you’re interested in? And actually it’s in the detail that you can learn a lot about that place or or how they they approach things.
Anant Sharma: 08:31
You’re trying to evaluate a subjective experience, right? And so it’s you’re building, you’re building a sort of trust or paradigm of design and value, and you know how people use materials and what it might say about the rest of the experience and how to judge like other parts of the experience. And you know, your brain is frantically trying to figure these things out, whether you like it or not, you know, because at the end of the day, you’re not just having an experience, you’ve paid for an experience. So you’re like kind of in a product while also being in an experience, which is which is the sort of like it’s just a tension that you sort of have to call out that’s like do you know what I mean? Like you’re paying, you’re paying for a thing that you’re doing, you know, and so value is a really important part of it all. And so it’s the tiny signifiers that give reference to actually what that value is and how you can sort of associate it to other things in your life that become, do you know what I mean, the bedrock of who you believe you are creatively and personality.
Tom Marchant: 09:28
Yeah, I I totally agree. And I think not just because you work, we both work in the the the travel and luxury industry, that you because you have experience of seeing these things, they matter. I think it’s for anyone who’s just you know who takes care and attention or cares about things even in their day-to-day, that you can see so much through something often like so seemingly insignificant. And I think, yeah, like you say, also it does matter, like you said, when you know precious time, time away. Um, you know, I I can tell a lot, I mean a lot of people can by wear the the tap for a shower to turn it on is position, um, and and if you know, and miss small things on that, but I think it’s interesting how some of the things, and this is not taking, like you said, things like views for granted, they’re important, but an experience that feels properly immersive and deep has to kind of translate through to all the details. I mean, on a on a different level, I you know, beyond like say properties and stuff, I always notice it’s weird, but it’s like the smells of of of airports or or like they just have different things, and I think it’s probably like I’ve got a fine nose for different detergents they use to like clean airports, but there’s a very like say JFK has a very distinctive, you know, and do you know what I mean? And and there’s different airports, and and I think it’s also because senses just for me, it’s always just seems much more heightened when I’m into places, and maybe it’s because I I’m not actively going, oh, I’m gonna try and smell or hear differently, but I think when you are somewhere new, and you’ll know more of this than I do, but your body is just a bit more attuned to kind of okay, this is new, there are things coming at me, so it just feels like you’re reacting a bit quicker or more in a more heightened sense than you would be at home where everything feels more natural, so you’re not really thinking about.
Anant Sharma: 11:19
Yeah, I mean you’re in a state, you’re in a slight state of fight or flight, you know, and so all of you all of your senses are more acute. Yeah, when you get off an airplane, the reason an airport smells a certain way, or whether you’re frankly just walking into the terminal, is because your scent is one of the only senses that when a certain scent becomes a common denominator, your brain qualifies it out, so you stop smelling it. So you can’t really tell what like your children smell like. I mean, you you can smell your children, you know, but you can’t really tell what the smell of your own home is. You know, your your brain is basically qualified out, kind of common sense. But obviously, when you’ve been blasted by air conditioning in an airplane for the last um, you know, thank God you can’t smell anything because um because um yeah uh you know, and so and so you you really notice those um you know those senses are really heightened.
Tom Marchant: 12:07
No, it’s true. You know, talking about senses, or talking about friction in travel, like you you know, you travel much like and and when I say friction, it’s where it’s like sometimes it might feel challenging but rewarding, um, or or like you know, you have to earn the experience earning war. Like when you’ve been traveling, you have it sort of experience what I’d call like a healthy friction in travel. Like I talk about this when there’s certain parts of the world where it might not be you know super sleek, it’s worth around the edges, but it’s it kind of it’s okay because it’s part of the bigger experience and you shouldn’t shouldn’t have these expectations, and that’s part of what makes it interesting. But you might call it a friction in that. Is that something you see or or or means anything to you?
Anant Sharma: 12:51
I say this often because I really believe it, but I think luxury would become an excuse to take the slower path. And when you pay for something to go back to this premise of value, you are really paying for your own time. You you’re you’re paying for yourself to value something more, you’re valuing that time more than you would otherwise. People don’t value their own time actually in a lot. Things we spend our time doing and waste our time doing, you know. So when you spend money on something, especially for the high net worth, you’re you’re buying that space within yourself, within your calendar for yourself, for those around you, you know, to learn something, to educate yourself, to reconnect with your senses, to connect with those around you. And you’re buying the right to take the slower path. And a lot of the joy in life is the journey to get to the outcome, you know. Today the world has just become about it’s just about the headline, isn’t it? It’s about it’s about the um uh it’s the punchline without the journey.
Tom Marchant: 13:59
Yeah, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Anant Sharma: 14:01
But the hero’s journey, you know, it’s a famous narrative arc, you know, without tension, there is no triumph, you know. So see so you need to get and and you realize when you get to the end that it’s been about the journey, it’s not been about the place you’re trying to get to. And so I think I think luxury has a sort of plays maybe like a noble role today, which is how can we just start from across every touch point, slowing the cadence, creating positive affirmation, positive reflection, getting people to stop and see what they might otherwise not. English heritage have these signs that they experimented with in some of their um in some of their estates that instead of saying don’t walk on the grass, say take off your shoes and stand barefoot on where history happened. And it it’s just a reframe, isn’t it? Yeah but it’s one that people can have a far better time of what they’re there to do, which is not just consume the environment but connect with the environment.
Tom Marchant: 15:16
Yeah, I think that’s it’s funny actually. We you talk about the role of good guides in some of the the journeys you take, uh or whether some people say, Well, I don’t need a guide if I’m gonna be trekking through, you know, say it’s part of the you know, up in Leti, like in northern India, you know, and uh and but we we work we we do a lot of uh business up there and there’s the the village walks and it’s amazing to be to be guided and you can do it without guides. But I’m speaking from personal experience, and there was one day I was there many, many years ago, and I said, Oh I’ll I’ll just hike myself from this point to this point, and Tommy Image is great, but I just didn’t have any of the context or stuff the places I was walking through, you know, and uh and a guidebook doesn’t have that, and then when you had someone beside you who could bring that place to life and make you think about it more and connect more, it made a difference. And whether that’s through someone or whether it’s through language of science, I just think there is yeah, it slows you down, uh, and you take more from it. I mean, the actually the relationships that people have built, our clients with guides around the world, it feels like they’ve become extended family members, actually. But I think that’s because of the stories they tell and the connections they foster.
Anant Sharma: 16:31
A good guide dramatically alters everything about your experience. Yeah. Everything. You know, you you can sometimes fall into this fallacy that a guide tells you what’s around you, and of course, a guide doesn’t do that. A guide is a part of the lineage of like all of the historical points of reference that led up to why everything is the way it is now.
Tom Marchant: 16:53
Exactly. Exactly. There’s um there’s a guy who’s a very good friend of mine uh in Iceland called Jon, and he’s he’s about seven foot tall, he’s like a big red-haired Viking, and and he’s like, you know, he knows my daughters, knows my family, and and he I know him very well. And the way, you know, the way he shares stories with his family and the folklore in Iceland, then it’s like, you know, you’re just it Iceland doesn’t feel like Iceland if you’re not with someone like Ion. Um, and and yeah, it’s it means a lot, yeah. And I think they’re a key facet. Um, so yeah, here’s for the guides. Um
Tom Marchant: 17:28
talking about that, which I think kind of leans into a question I was going to ask you, and I think we could talk for hours on this. I think we’ve been at recent dinners, which we had this probably conversation, but as a snapshot, yeah, we as a company are embracing many of the benefits that AI can bring into our systems behind the scenes, you know, to kind of take get rid of some of the kind of customer friction in terms of getting the right engagement with our brilliant human beings. So we see it as a tool to kind of help our human beings, you know, amplify their uniquely and irreplaceable human skills. Where do you think it’s a big question? Um, you know, so we see it as a role to support us delivering uniquely human-led experiences. Where do you think AI can meaningfully play a role in experiences and where should it stay out?
Anant Sharma: 18:18
I I think you just need to ask yourself a simple question, which is what business are you in? And that governs style of service, role of technology, AI enablement, level of personalization, level of surprise, like depersonalization. If you go to you class the Dorchester and Amman as luxury hotels, but one has invisible service and the other has white glove service. It’s not the same form of service. Yeah. Go to Citizen N and technology plays an important role. They’ve borrowed kiosks from the airline industry to allow you to check in on your own without having to speak to a human, and that’s part of the promise. You can pick, well, obviously now being bought by a fairly large group, and a lot of their technology’s been subsumed into a bigger technology stack, and that has, you know, well publicized problems with that. But I think you need to ask yourself really basic questions first, which is what’s the emotional hypothesis we’re trying to deliver? And then firstly, how can AI create a better employee experience? And secondly, is there a role for AI in personalizing the customer experience without a human checking, guiding, or um tweaking the decisions, tiny decisions that ultimately seem very, very small when they’re part of an SOP or a PDF or a spreadsheet, but are still two really important minutes of someone’s day.
Tom Marchant: 19:46
Yeah, and that’s the thing, it’s um it’s the element of trust and it’s the element of insight. And I think the big thing in in the sort of luxury travel world is is relationships. And and I think where we and great hotels work well are the relationship between humans, relations within their spaces and around. I think that’s very irreplaceable. I think like you said, about helping the employee experience is great. And I think where there is where there are areas of you know mundane or or friction to be smoothed out, it’s great. But I think also, like you said, asking for what business you should do.
Anant Sharma: 20:24
I think what you’ve built with the feelings engine, I think that’s a really interesting use case for AI. And and I wrote a business plan to build just this 10 years ago, and it was initially for the fragrance industry. And I was interested in the fact that people couldn’t understand their scent, and the only way in which a perfume was marketed was sort of based on what people thought they liked the smell of, but actually after you smell two things, you’ve basically your nose is overwhelmed anyway. And and then this, whatever celebrity had endorsed that fragrance. And so I went deep into different note types, you know, and there and there were sort of different facets of note type. And then, you know, I applied, you know, analogous reference imagery. So, you know, what basically do me other kind of visual references, you know, can you move people through to then create a curated selection of fragrances? And I tried to sell it to the world of duty for it at the at the time, and and there’s a problem with licensing. Apparently, the two main noses in this world, which is the name for those people who categorize and tack with tax who taxonomise and classify all the different types of fragrance, and you have to, it’s a huge license fees to use any of that data. It’s quite an interesting journey, actually. But I then rebuilt it for travel, you know, and my prep was simple, which is that you don’t know if a 22 year old newlywed couple want an empty beach or a packed one, and you don’t know if a 60 year old couple want an empty beach or a packed one. You just don’t, I mean, to put it very basically, a persona means nothing. Yeah. You don’t know what people are after. You know, and if you can get people through a visual mood boarding tool to go effectively replace forms and filters with visuals, people have more fun making choices. The second part of that that interests me is actually group travel and how you involve others in making choices with the key decision maker. Now, normally the key decision maker is overwhelmed and having to take responsibility for more people than they’d like to take responsibility for, because no one’s actually had agency over the choice. No one appreciates the level of decision making that’s had to go into the thing that you ultimately engage in and perhaps don’t appreciate it as much as they would if they’d been involved in the process as well. The third part is how do you gamify it so you turn it into something that actually feels enjoyable rather than an overwhelming decision that you get choice paralysis through. And so I think there’s interesting things to play with. I think AI can help in those areas actually.
Tom Marchant: 22:57
Yeah. Yes, it can. And um, we should talk about that. Um, step into this podcast. For
Tom Marchant: 23:03
someone who’s traveled so much, yeah, you could probably reference a whole host of destinations that had a profound impact on you.
Anant Sharma: 23:10
But if I was to ask you one destination that’s had the biggest impact on you, where would you where would you talk about and why look, I’m Indian and I’ve got an uneasy relationship with India because it’s a country that I love deeply, but I also watch eating itself, I think is quite unhealthy. And I won’t go too much into that, but I really reconnected with India when I went motorbiking through it. Um and I didn’t travel through India. A lot of people, when they were in their teens or when they went traveling, you know, they did they went through like an Indian backpacking route. But I never did because whenever I went there, I was always visiting family. So my time in India was too precious to travel. And I maybe I’d go and do a week and goa, you know, and go, you know, get to get some psychedelic trance, party for three and a half days. And then, but really I didn’t have the time to travel. And and so I struggled to look above the impracticality in poverty, and and that impacted me hugely because I could, it was just such different worlds, you know, and and I knew I came from one, but I lived in another. And I could see the pain, I could see the pain in one, and I could see problems, different sorts of problems in the other. And I went back to India every year my whole life, enough to see the change, but not enough to be desensitized to the change. So, so so it’s like I went motorbiking through like through the mountains, and you know, we spoke about flow state earlier, you know. I mean, I I just couldn’t believe how switched off my brain was, worryingly switched off when I was on a motorbike, but also how kind of sort of central the whole experience was, and how when I went deep into the ranges, mountain ranges, you know, over the first mountain, over the second, over the third, into life in the mountains, you know, within the range. Um how suddenly connected with this sort of like historical way of Indian being I was, and the level of peace that was there was just um for me quietly breathtaking. Um, so it would have to be India.
Tom Marchant: 25:30
Beautifully
Tom Marchant: 25:31
put. Um quick prior to wrap this up, I always want to ask. Um, again, it’s always a tricky one for someone for World Travel, but I want to ask you just quick for answers on a few things. Um might be difficult given what you’ve given your role of advising, but do you have a favorite hotel?
Anant Sharma: 25:48
The last one I went to. Um I went to Ilas Sacas in Panama, and um it’s just amazing. I I I really, it was um wild.
Tom Marchant: 26:02
Panama is um I don’t know if the first ever research trip I took with when I started this company was was to Panama um about 20 years ago. Um, largely because I think it was the only place that was willing to host me because I didn’t know what my company was doing. But I ended up having the best time out there kayaking up the Panama Canal. Um, do you have a favorite view?
Anant Sharma: 26:22
Um yeah, it’s a bit underwhelming. It’s stupid in a way. It’s the willow trees out of the window of my study in Islington where I am now.
Tom Marchant: 26:29
Really? I mean, but but how how envious a position to be in that you have your favorite view outside of your house. Uh so that’s perfect. And and lastly, just because food’s a big thing we talk about. Um restaurants, I mean, the the the epicentres of sensory experiences. Do you have a current favorite restaurant if you were going to recommend?
Anant Sharma: 26:48
It’s always the last good one I went to, which in this case it’s Manao in Dubai. And um just to mix it up and throw something in a different place. And and I enjoyed it for for various reasons, but it I wasn’t drinking when I turned up, I realized it was it was also a restaurant that didn’t serve alcohol, and they just had an amazing pet non-alcoholic pairing menu. It was just sort of extraordinary and felt like such a um treat to to be in a you know, to be in a drinking abstinence phase, yeah. To be sort of a Michelin restaurant, I think it’s got a Michelin, you know, and and just to have an exceptional pairing for every course. And it was it was um over.
Tom Marchant: 27:30
That’s that’s that’s that’s for us at the at the top level, isn’t it? Rather than being uh, here’s a jug of tap water and uh you know a diet coke. Exactly. Um might make nice pairings. Um Anna, thank you so much. Uh that is um you know as informed and inspiring as ever. So deeply appreciate you giving your time for this uh this episode of Pursuit of Feeling where we we talk about how you explore the world, and I know I know listeners will get a lot from it as I have. So thank you very much for your time and coming on the uh the podcast.
Anant Sharma: 27:59
Always an absolute pleasure. Thanks, Tom.
Tom Marchant: 28:02
Cheers.
