How did Butterfield & Robinson make the leap in the 1980s from student tours to adult biking tours?
Lots of parents asked us: Why don’t we do something for them? We tried the idea in 1970 of bicycling in Europe from inn to inn, staying at grand places, but we got no response. Then we tried again 10 years later. It went, as they say, bananas. What do you attribute that to? Timing. I think the world had changed. Maybe bicycle technology had moved forward. Maybe we marketed it a little better. How did you develop your reputation for luxury adventure travel? The trips are on the higher price side of things, but they’re not really over the top. But that reputation has been from the beginning. And getting it right has some costs involved. For example, when we are on a bicycle trip, we usually try to pre-trip the trip because it’s amazing how quickly a construction crew moves in and the road instructions you wrote one week don’t work the next. What advice would you give someone who’s starting a travel business? Do this because you love it. And indeed it’s a pretty privileged way to live. Yo
