Abercrombie and Kent founder Geoffrey Kent comes to Abu Dhabi to talk about the world of the luxury traveller and tripping with Bill Gates.
Why open a Boutique in Abu Dhabi?
The clients of Abu Dhabi are full of adventure. They want to get out there and see the world, but they aren’t really sure exactly where they want to go and how they are going to do it. That’s where we come in.
What is the purpose of having a physical boutique in Abu Dhabi?
This boutique is a traveller’s consultancy room, to ask questions and share any concerns they may have about travelling to a certain location. The boutique is also connected to each of our 50 boutiques around the world via Skype, so from here we can very quickly put you in contact with a local expert on the ground at any travel destination. The trips that we organise operate on a grand scale and venture to some of the least developed parts of the world, so there are always questions from clients that arise relating to security and safety.
What types of experiences do you organise?
We have 356 experiences currently available all over the world. They are very high end luxury experiences that we can guarantee are bespoke, because we own all the companies on the ground that we work with. You cannot Google what we are selling, simply because the types of expeditions that we arrange mean that there is inevitably a level of risk involved in undertaking it. I’ve been on every single trip we offer before we open it up to our clients, so I know exactly what is an option and what is not.
Have you taken any clients of note on an expedition with you?
I’ve taken David Rockefeller on 38 trips now. He’s nearly 90 years old but is still booking trips with us and I have personally led expeditions alongside Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, to name a few.
Are there any particular trips you look back on fondly?
Taking Bill [Gates] on his first trip was definitely a highlight. He had only been to Europe so had not travelled widely, but he asked me to take him on a trip that had never been done before, and likely would never be done again. So I took him down through Africa on an amphibious landing plane, stopping at places such as the Ngorongoro crater and Lake Tanganyika where Stanley met Livingstone, the presumed lost explorer. It was a truly memorable trip for both of us.
What makes Abercrombie and Kent different from any other travel company?
We keep jars of lemons around the boutique to remind us of how Abercrombie and Kent are unique. This goes back to a story some years ago, a guide was taking a touring party through Africa on safari and realised that he had forgotten the lemons for the party’s evening drinks. Just as he began to panic over what he could do, an Abercrombie and Kent speedboat appeared on the horizon, drew up alongside the party, and tossed a bag of lemons onto the riverbank before speeding off again. That tells you all you need to know about why Abercrombie and Kent are unique, it’s the little details that make all the difference to luxury.
Abercrombie and Kent is now open at Etihad Towers, Building Three. www.ambercrombiekent.com
