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COMPANY
MAhout is a small, highly personal representation company which provides a face and a voice in the UK for private, independent hotels and companies which do not find it viable to have their own offices here. We are, effectively, their ‘ambassador’, and provide an umbrella under which each of them may sit, whilst fully retaining their own identity and individuality. Under this umbrella we have successfully brought together a spectacular group of properties. These range from some of India’s most luxurious and innovative boutique hotels, spas and yoga retreats to glorious small, forts, palaces, colonial mansions and bungalows. We also represent a collection of outstanding and truly special tented camps and jungle lodges.
As a company we represent what is possibly the finest collection of small or independent hotels in India, providing them with increased exposure in the travel trade and trade press. Each has been carefully selected and hand-picked for its excellence, style and atmosphere, architecture or unique location, and they are spread all over the country. I return to India regularly each year to ensure that these enchanting places’ high standards are being maintained, and to keep abreast of any changes taking place at any one of them at any given time. Subsequently, MAhout is able to consistently provide honest and up to date information on all the hotels it represents – a vitally important element to planning a holiday.
India enthrals, mystifies and intoxicates its visitors – so much so that many see it as their second or spiritual ‘home’ and yearn to return year after year. Having been well and truly bitten by the ‘India bug’, Mary-Anne- has spent several years travelling in the Subcontinent and has been lucky enough to discover a few of its many hidden secrets and to form long and lasting friendships with some of the most affable people in the world. We do hope that, as you glance through these enticing hotel web pages, you will find a special place which either lures you back to this extraordinary country or which tempts you out here for the first time. Be warned, however, once you begin exploring these little gems, you may find yourself captivated forever more!
As a company we represent what is possibly the finest collection of small or independent hotels in India, providing them with increased exposure in the travel trade and trade press. Each has been carefully selected and hand-picked for its excellence, style and atmosphere, architecture or unique location, and they are spread all over the country. I return to India regularly each year to ensure that these enchanting places’ high standards are being maintained, and to keep abreast of any changes taking place at any one of them at any given time. Subsequently, MAhout is able to consistently provide honest and up to date information on all the hotels it represents – a vitally important element to planning a holiday.
India enthrals, mystifies and intoxicates its visitors – so much so that many see it as their second or spiritual ‘home’ and yearn to return year after year. Having been well and truly bitten by the ‘India bug’, Mary-Anne- has spent several years travelling in the Subcontinent and has been lucky enough to discover a few of its many hidden secrets and to form long and lasting friendships with some of the most affable people in the world. We do hope that, as you glance through these enticing hotel web pages, you will find a special place which either lures you back to this extraordinary country or which tempts you out here for the first time. Be warned, however, once you begin exploring these little gems, you may find yourself captivated forever more!
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The aim is to keep MAhout small, intimate and personal and Managing Director, Mary-Anne Denison-Pender, is directly involved in all aspects of the running of the business. In this aspect alone there are huge benefits as it is Mary-Anne who personally looks after the company’s clients' interests, rather than handing things over to someone who is less knowledgeable. Her passion for travel and, in particular India, is unsurpassed in the UK and all comers - individuals, the travel trade and members of the press - have direct access to her and her in depth knowledge and valued advice, at all times. Her dedication to the trade is well known the world over and she is considered by many to be one of England's leading experts on The Subcontinent. Mary-Anne has been in the trade for almost 25 years and has built up a strong and recognised reputation around the world. She first travelled to India 25 years ago and, on arrival, she immediately fell in love with the country and decided to 'stay on' for a while. Her time there was spent exploring every nook and cranny of the country, travelling on buses and trains (often the rooftops!) During the course of her travels she made a great many true and lasting friendships, which she still retains today and which enable her to do what she is now doing. Subsequent years were spent travelling in Pakistan, Nepal, Tibet, China and Hong Kong before continuing to Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia. When she finally hung up her 'backpacking' boots, she joined Cox & Kings Travel Ltd. as a specialist India consultant and ran their India product. She later joined / was part of setting up Western & Oriental Travel Ltd. where she was Managing Director. Having created their Asian product, Mary-Anne secured its widely acknowledged reputation as the UK's leading tour operator for holidays to The Subcontinent and Asia. The brochures she produced for the company are considered 'collectors' items' by many individuals and are used as 'bibles' by other specialist tour operators. Eight years ago Mary-Anne moved on again in order to pursue what she has always felt destined to do - namely to put some of India's finest small hotels 'on the map'! The result is MAhout – an owner run company whose primary focus is to create exposure and business for some of the Subcontinents most exceptional and deserving hotels. |
Black Card – Winter 2009
Mahout (UK) is run with passion and expertise by Mary-Anne Denison-Pender. Based in Oxfordshire. Mahout specialises in small, independent, charming hotels and tailored itineraries
ABTA Magazine – India Supplement September 2008
Mahout represents 22 small or independent hotels n India, some with satellite camps or sister hotels nearby. They are predominantly in the states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala, but there are also properties in the East and West Himalaya, near Darjeeling, in the wildlife parks in Ladakh. The highly individual properties include spas and yoga retreats, small forts, palaces, colonial mansions and bungalows, special tented camps and jungle lodges.”
The Times, March 2007
The most comprehensive portfolio of hidden gems has been put together by Mary-Anne Denison-Pender. Some are restored rajputs homes or palaces, other are hill forts, hunting lodges or plantation bungalows set in gardens. MAhout is a one-stop shop for the most individual and welcoming lodgings that India has to offer.
The Times, September 2006
‘My little black book. Cath Urquhart, Editor, Times Travel
Journalists will tell you that their contacts book is their most prized possession. Certainly, when I researched my new book, The Times Holiday Handbook, I picked the brains of hundreds of my contacts in the travel industry whose insight and knowledge offer something fresh. Here I've picked 50 of the most interesting of my contacts to share with you. Their work varies widely – from setting up a small tour operator specialising in Central Asia, or a luggage delivery service, to running one of Europe's biggest airlines or a global publishing empire. But all have created, or achieved, something new and interesting in their specialist field, and their companies and services are ones that every traveller should know about. It was hard to stick to 50 specialists, as there are hundreds more I could have included. But if you take advice from this bunch, you'll start your travels off in the right direction……. Mary-Anne Denison-Pender. Another India expert, with 20 years of vists behind her, Denison-Pender, 40, set up Mahout in 2002 to promote small, hidden gems of hotels across the Subcontinent.'
Journalists will tell you that their contacts book is their most prized possession. Certainly, when I researched my new book, The Times Holiday Handbook, I picked the brains of hundreds of my contacts in the travel industry whose insight and knowledge offer something fresh. Here I've picked 50 of the most interesting of my contacts to share with you. Their work varies widely – from setting up a small tour operator specialising in Central Asia, or a luggage delivery service, to running one of Europe's biggest airlines or a global publishing empire. But all have created, or achieved, something new and interesting in their specialist field, and their companies and services are ones that every traveller should know about. It was hard to stick to 50 specialists, as there are hundreds more I could have included. But if you take advice from this bunch, you'll start your travels off in the right direction……. Mary-Anne Denison-Pender. Another India expert, with 20 years of vists behind her, Denison-Pender, 40, set up Mahout in 2002 to promote small, hidden gems of hotels across the Subcontinent.'
Ultratravel, Daily Telegraph – Spring 2006
‘She has been in more palaces, met more rajputs, seen more tigers than you've had onion bhajis' –
What price a true expert? Victoria Mather seeks out travel companies that are small and perfectly formed…I think small. As the world gets bigger, as its vastness opens up to the tripper and the trekker; as the ice clinks in gins and tonics around campfires from the Kalahari to Kathmandu, small is the only way to go. I am talking expertise: the small individual travel specialists who can crack the relentless, creeping homogeneity that is the curse of modern travel.
You know that the world is becoming a shopping mall when the mobile rings and one's caller says “Where are you? The lobby of the Imperial in Delhi? Ah, you must be standing in front of the Chanel boutique.” The caller is in London, you are in India where once a reliably familiar meeting place in Sunder Nagar Market was by the blind beggar. And he wasn't a pub.
Let us open my secret address book in India, as we happen to be there, about to step into Padma Gems at 9-A Sunder Nagar to order a Burmese ruby eternity ring. As one does. Very big, India. Utterly wonderful and enchanting, suffused with colour and light and magic. Completely unmanageable unless you know what you are doing – or you know a woman who does. ….You want to stay on tea estates and coffee plantations, to chill in a yoga retreat built in the tree tops? Then your woman is Mary-Anne Denison-Pender (www.mahoutuk.com), who's been in more palaces, met more rajputs, ridden more elephants, and seen more tigers than you've had onion bhajis. She knows India, she's under its skin – subcutaneous in the sub-continent – the one who'll tell you about Chhatra Sagar, the tented camp on the edge of the dam at Nimaj, where women hand-paint the patterns on the floors with henna after the monsoon. Maharajahs' eyes light up if you mention Mary-Anne. When did you ever name-drop Tracey from Ignoramus Tours and get a result?
Vanity Fair US – May 2006
India - Mary-Anne Denison-Pender, secret agent extraordinaire for India – maharajas weep with joy when you mention her name – is well worth consulting about Churhat Kothi and other insider-track camps, mahals and palaces.
Tatler - May 2006
The adventures of… Mary Anne Denison-Pender - Thirty something Londoner Mary Anne runs Mahout, which specialises in marketing Indian hotels. She has been stung by Portuguese man-of-war in Goa, attacked by drunken Ulighur man in Kashgar and insulted by Iranian modesty police for showing her wrist bone and forgetting to take off her mascara. She has knocked out an intruder by hitting him over the head with a soup ladle, hitched a ride with an army convoy from Leh to Manali and run out of money in Tahiti, when she had to live under a piece of plastic for three days eating nothing but papayas. She has gone crazy on painkillers, had a virus in her teeth and suffered blood poisoning from live coral after harpooning a tuna in Java. She entered Turkmenistan hanging onto the side of an oil tanker, has been a stowaway in a cupboard full of watermelons on a Russian train and has been stranded endlessly in no-man's lands. She once went by train from Victoria Station to Tehran; it took a week and was only 18 minutes late in arriving.
Vanity Fair – April 2006
Mary-Anne Denison-Pender - Secret agent extraordinary on India – maharajas weep with joy when you mention her name – Mary-Anne is well worth consulting about insider-track camps, mahals and palaces.
Conde Nast Traveller – January 2006
2006 The Gold List - Meet the super-panel of readers whose votes have helped us compile our list of the best hotels in the world - Mary-Anne Denison-Pender.
Mary-Anne Denison-Pender has spent 20 years in the travel industry, both working for and managing tour operating companies. She now runs her own business, MAhout, which represents India's finest small hotels and one of Australia's most innovative ground-handling companies. Considered one of the country's leading experts on Indian travel, her knowledge of the subcontinent is second to none.
Tatler Travel Guide 2005
MAhout Does Morocco – Mary-Anne Denison-Pender, of the hotel representation company MAhout, is on a mission. As one of the UK's top travel authorities on India, she is the champion of that rare gem: the perfect luxury boutique hotel that everyone dreams of but rarely finds. Till now, these delightful places have had no voice other than word of mouth. Mary-Anne has changed all that with MAhout, which promotes special places to stay, off the beaten track. Now she is bringing her flair and expertise to Morocco, starting with two fabulous, little-known properties.
Nehru Centre, July 2004
Mary-Anne Denison Pender, one of England's leading experts on all aspects of travel through the sub-continent, in particular Rajasthan. Dedicated to the promotion of India, she heads MAhout, which represents privately owned heritage and boutique hotels, island retreats and lodges
Tatler – 2004
Mary-Anne Denison-Pender of MAhout has unparalleled knowledge of India.
Sunday Times Travel 2004
For all its frantic bustle and crowds, says Cath Urquhart, India is now more accessible. India travel expert Mary-Anne Denison-Pender, who's also been visiting the country for two decades, told me what she thinks.
Tatler - March 2003
‘Travel Information – Victoria Mather says – Heritage Hotels – Mary Anne Denison-Pender is the expert who knows all of these and will work with travel companies on an itinerary at no extra cost to you.'
Daily Telegraph – January 2003
Joanna Symons says 'Travellers wanting to book accommodation in India's splendid collection of heritage hotels can now take advantage of MAhout, a new information service. Many of the subcontinent's historic buildings – summer palaces, hunting lodges, hill forts and colonial bungalows – have been converted into hotels that still retain the grandeur of the Raj. Until now, though, it has been difficult for independent travellers to find out about individual properties. Mary-Anne Denison-Pender, the founder of MAhout, can provide detailed information on the best heritage hotels.'
Tatler 2003 Travel Guide
‘Best Experts – People - Mary-Anne Denison-Pender – Best expert on India's heritage hotels, Mary-Anne is your woman for the lowdown on the little heritage hotels of India, the places of quirky charm run by the owners, from maharajahs downwards. She has set up her own company, MAhout, which specializes in the India that's a world away from chain hotels and that actually has something to do with this extraordinary, inspiring country. She's visited all the properties and, make no mistake, Mary-Anne is hugely comfort-aware. You are safe in her hands.'
The Times, December 2002
‘Departures – Jill Crawshaw has the best holiday suggestions – First-class trip in Northern India – India has a wealth of heritage and boutique hotels, and they're about to get a boost from a new travel consultancy, MAhout UK Ltd……'
The Observer - Escape - November 2002
'Unearthing India's hidden jewels - Jane Knight tells you where to find the best Rajasthani palaces. …… Heard about Rajasthan's hidden gems but don't know how to find out about them? Look no further than MAhout, a one-stop marketing bureau for India's small heritage and boutique hotels…'
Conde Nast Traveller - April 2001
'The Experts - 50 Hot Numbers - …. Consult the who's who and where's where of the key travel specialists worldwide, says Sophy Roberts. Asia - Mary-Anne Denison-Pender (former) managing director of Western & Oriental Travel, ….. is the best on India. (She has) unbeatable knowledge of private, stylish properties, and not just the most expensive - which is why other tour operators are known to use her brochures as guidebooks.'
Tatler - July 2001
'They're Great - Tigers and Ranthambore, by Victoria Mather - How To Get There ... Ask for Mary-Anne Denison-Pender who has specialist knowledge of the region'
Tatler - October 1999
'All the Raj, by Patty Palmer-Tomkinson - The person to guide one through which little hotels to go to is Mary-Anne Denison-Pender: her knowledge of India and of the development of the old forts and palaces, is formidable. Better still, when in the kingdom of Mewar, say: ' Mary-Anne sent me'. The result will be Rajas and Thakurs wreathed in smiles.'
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