Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Corner.

It's Wednesday the 8th of October.

I'm sitting on the balcony of a hotel in Magaloupe overlooking the Bay of Palmer.

As the sun rises, it's absolutely lovely.

And I'm in the company of one of the travel industry's leading figures.

Jacqueline Dobson is the president of Barhead Travel and Internova Leisure. First thing, Jacqueline, tell us what those companies are.

Sure, good morning. And what a beautiful destination we're at today, so thank you for inviting me.

Barhead Travel is one of the

UK's largest travel agencies so we have over 550 employees within our business we sell all

types of travel we have a cruise business we have a tour on adventure section we also have a

Canadian division internova leisure is one of the largest US companies, travel companies, and again,

they sell all types of travel from leisure travel and also corporate business travel as well.

So, it's a Scottish company, Barhead, a small suburb of Glasgow in East Renfrewshire. You started 50 years ago and now you're part of a much bigger American company.

Yeah, so our business started in 1975 and it started our founder, couldn't find a travel agent open in the evenings or weekends.

So he had a lightbulb moment for him.

He started at Barhead Travel and Barhead High Street.

He opened six days a week until 7pm.

And then after probably a couple months, he then opened seven days a week and until the evening.

And the reason for that was he wanted the consumer

to be able to book holidays at their convenience

when it was convenient for them and their families.

And that's been our ethos ever since then.

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