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Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder and today a very special guest.

It is Mark Dugid who is the managing director of Cooney in the UK which as you will know is a very longstanding and upmarket tour operator and I want to find out

what I can from him about the whole business of selling luxury travel to people and what people

are looking for so you're very welcome Mark I guess the first question is, luxurious travel.

Is that your life?

Pleasure to join you, Simon.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Luxury travel is my life these days, but it's definitely not where I started.

So we had a conversation off air.

My upbringing is much more modest. I grew up in a farmhouse in rural, North East Scotland, so quite a distance away from the life

that I've ended up in.

But you were running carrier, if I'm not mistaken, one of the most upmarket travel firms

in the universe, I would say, certainly in the UK,

for six years. That is sheer luxury, isn't it? It's a real kind of bespoke. Whatever I want to do

as a traveller, if I've got the cash, you will fix it up for me. That's a very good summary

of what Carrier is. So many of your listeners probably want to have heard of Carrier.

...