Generation start-up: How Dharma is reshaping travel with Eric Cantona

The company is tapping into a growing niche that offers curated, immersive trips for travellers

A UAE-based travel start-up collaborating with French actor and football superstar Eric Cantona to curate unique travel experiences. Photo: Looking FC

Cantona’s curated trips include Buenos Aires, Argentina, where fans can watch a Boca Juniors match at La Bombonera stadium. Photo: Looking FC

Other immersive trips include the UK for a match between Liverpool and Manchester United, among others. Photo: Looking FC

A curated tour of Casablanca, Morocco. The company Dharma launched the Cantona Looking FC platform earlier this month. Photo: Looking FC

A visit to Barcelona is among the packages offered by Looking FC. Photo: Looking FC

Prices for the Cantona packages range from €1,290 ($1,438) to €3,000, the company says. Looking FC

Football start Eric Cantona, 55, centre, played for seven teams before ending his career at Manchester United in 1997. Photo: Looking FC

Other immersive trips include Italy for Inter Milan and AS Roma fans, France for followers of Paris Saint-Germain and Olympique De Marseille. Photo: Looking FC

Cantona was among the inaugural inductees into the English Football Hall of Fame. Photo: Looking FC

Related: Abu Dhabi start-up Dharma and football legend Cantona team up for themed travel platform

The travel industry has long been dominated by mass package holidays that offer large groups fleeting visits to multiple countries on whistle-stop world tours, where they end up jostling with thousands of others in packed tourist areas just to catch a glimpse of famous landmarks.

However, the Covid-19 pandemic has changed the way many consumers view travel and a growing niche has emerged for more personal, immersive experiences, according to Charaf El Mansouri, chief executive and co-founder of Dharma, an Abu Dhabi-based travel brand-as-a-service platform that curates unique experiences that appeal to people's passions in life.

“We set out to build a travel company that we wish existed … this is the future of travel,” Mr El Mansouri says. “Travel in the future will be consumed from a point of passion, not a point of geography or destination.

“At Dharma, we're building both the architecture and technology to power that [and] to empower non-travel professionals to build and scale their own travel brands.”

Travel has been one of the hardest-hit sectors during the pandemic as movement restrictions and border closures kept millions at home and flights grounded. However, the sector is making a gradual recovery as governments ease restrictions and accelerate vaccination programmes.

The global travel and tourism market is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of about 3.1 per cent to reach $8.9 trillion by 2026, according to market research firm IndustryArc.

However, it is the personalised travel and experiences segment that is expected to record the sharpest growth. Valued at $91.2 billion in 2020, it is estimated to grow at a compound annual rate of 17.1 per cent to reach $447.3bn by 2030, Research and Markets said in its latest report.

Mr El Mansouri, Nisma Benani and Leah Howe, who have worked for some of the world’s best-known companies including Uber, Airbnb and Equinox, launched Dharma in 2018. The co-founders relocated to the UAE during the pandemic, after the company became one of the first start-ups to be accepted into Abu Dhabi’s global technology ecosystem, Hub71, in November 2020.

Dharma started out curating personal health and wellness travel experiences with yoga influencers but since then, it has expanded its portfolio to capture travellers interested in adventure, music and culture, and even sport after collaborating with French actor and football superstar Eric Cantona.

The company’s Looking FC platform features a range of four-day trips that were curated by the former French national team and Manchester United player, who has leaned on his own personal experiences of travelling the world while playing football to create immersive trips for fans.

Football superstar Eric Cantona has curated personal travel experiences for fans of the game. Courtesy Dharma

Cantona, 55, played for seven teams before ending his career at Manchester United in 1997 at the age of 30. In 2002, he was among the inaugural inductees into the English Football Hall of Fame.

Cantona’s curated trips include Buenos Aires, Argentina, where fans can watch a Boca Juniors match at La Bombonera stadium, spend time with locals to learn the words to the fan chants, enjoy a traditional asado barbecue, take part in a Boca masterclass and play a game of futsal.

Other immersive trips include Italy for Inter Milan fans, France for followers of Paris Saint-Germain and the UK for a match between Liverpool and Manchester United, among others.

“What better way is there to understand the history of a city than through its football clubs?” Cantona says.

“These trips are a way to allow people to experience, on top of the euphoria of the games, the passion of the community around the clubs.

These trips are a way to allow people to experience, on top of the euphoria of the games, the passion of the community around the clubs

Eric Cantona,
French actor and former football player

“People want to experience that, I think. True fans want to be in the action, want to be part of the energy of the match. They want to see and meet the fans … learn the songs and the meaning behind them, who created them and what they mean to the local community.”

Football is the most popular sport worldwide. Fifa, its governing body, estimates 265 million people play the sport globally, while 3.5 billion fans watch the game.

“That is the reason why we started with football and Eric; football is the biggest social phenomenon in the world with 3.5 billion fans and Manchester United has about 600 million followers online between their social channels,” Mr El Mansouri says.

“So the idea was if there's a proof of concept on our hypothesis as a business, it's going to be in football with Eric. The results since launch have been overwhelmingly positive.”

Prices for the Cantona packages range from €1,290 ($1,438) to €3,000, Mr El Mansouri says. Travellers pay for their own flights on top of the cost of the package, but everything on the ground is taken care of by Dharma, such as sourcing game tickets, accommodation, food, organising transportation and other activities, he adds.

“From the moment you land to departure, you are not thinking of or stressing out about what your itinerary is, you're not thinking of your wallet, you're not thinking of anything; it's just fully curated from arrival to departure,” he says.

“We've just priced it at cost of goods sold plus [a] margin that is industry standard, which then helps us with acquisition, marketing and distribution.

“We're definitely not making crazy margins out of this; we're making industry margins so that we can actually sell the product and we're quite confident that once the first guests go through this experience, Looking FC will grow into one of the largest travel brands in the world."

The co-founders bootstrapped Dharma with $50,000 but over the past year, they have raised $3.5m from investors including BY Venture Partners, Abu Dhabi’s Shorooq and Flat6Labs, as well as San Francisco-based Convivialite Ventures and Salzburg-based L& Ventures.

The company plans to launch a series A funding round in May, aiming to raise between $20m and $25m to fuel its expansion plans, Mr El Mansouri says.

Since launching the Cantona Looking FC platform earlier this month, 2022 has been Dharma’s biggest year yet, he adds.

“We are already six times bigger than our biggest years and have booked about $3m in revenue already,” he says. “We are looking at a $20m run rate by April, which is why we’re going out to the market for a series A [funding round].

“It’s like everyone in travel has been kind of holding back for the moment to jump. This is the jump moment and the numbers back it, so it feels like this is the time.”

Despite the pandemic, Dharma's growth plans remain on track, Mr El Mansouri says.

Funds raised from the Series A round will be used to continue strengthening Dharma's team, as well as launch the next 10 direct-to-consumer travel brands and other curated packages that will include onboarding 500 wellness leaders, such as yoga teachers and meditation instructors, and partnering with fitness studios by the end of the year.

“The first thing I would say is that Covid is the best thing that's ever happened to us because we ended up in Abu Dhabi,” he says.

“It was the best decision we ever made. We [will] come out of Covid probably 10 years ahead of where we were when we went into it in terms of backing, positioning, the strength of the team and in terms of the strength of the business.”

Q&A with Charaf El Mansouri, chief executive and co-founder of Dharma

What other successful start-ups do you wish you had started?

I'm a big fan of Spotify's algorithm, which gets to know your music taste better than you know yourself. I aspire to create the same for travel one day.

What new skills have you learnt since launching Dharma?

So much more than I learnt in all my education combined — and that ranges from coding to design to production.

Where do you want to be in five years?

I would like to have successfully built Dharma. It's one thing to have an idea, but our challenge in the next three to five years is to prove we are the right team to execute it.

If you could do it all differently, what would you change?

I would not have been so hesitant on what product to build. The lack of self-confidence in the product vision is something I wish I hadn't dealt with as we have a clear vision and now that it is validated, I realise we were on the right path much earlier than we realised.