Zuzana Zwiebel

Biography

In 2007, Zuzana Zwiebel, was brought by work in tourism and passion for discovery to Sri Lanka. Her personal experiences with long term political problems influencing tourism in South Asia inspired her for further studies of geopolitics at Manipal University in India and Asian history, culture and politics at Metropolitan University in the Czech Republic. She holds master degree in Economy (2007) and Asian Studies & International Relation (2012).

Since 1999 she has been cooperating with several reputed NGO’s focusing on tourism, regional development and self-financing of NGO’s. She wrote, managed and cooperated on projects funded by European Commission, Open Society, European Centre for Ecological and Agricultural Tourism (ECEAT) and etc. Subsequently she run her private tourism business license offering holistic destination management services.

In 2013, inspired by her studies and meetings with ayurveda experts she established her own travel agency SHAKTI TRAILS‘s (registered as AYURVEDA TRAILS in India), which tries to create “Healing Travel Collection Inspired by Art & Ayurveda”. Her philosophy of ART OF TRAVEL (When & Where to travel?) is based on three words: SPIRIT (Who to meet?) – Spirits (local experts) are people who can inspire others; STORY (What to do?) – Stories of spirits are transformed into the trails, which connect not only places on the map, but also creating meaningful connections with local people. STYLE (Where to stay?) – Style does not mean luxury, it is experience and personal artistic signature.

Soon, her activities were noticed by general public, but also experts. In 2015, her company was chosen among Top 12 Start-Up Innovation Award by five international judges of World Tourism Forum Lucerne. In 2017 she was invited as consultant for ayurveda resorts by magazine Condé Nast Traveler India and in 2018 she was featured among 50 foreigners who are helping to create modern picture of India with their activities by prestigious magazine Vogue India.