3. Can you give a brief overview of your other product?

Burwood: Our Back Roads program offers tours throughout Europe from Lapland to Turkey, and all the major countries in between, especially France and Italy. We have extensive Paris product along with city break packages in all the major European cities. We have offered Battlefield tours, following the Canadians in Europe, for many years and they continue to sell well with all generations.

4. What really special countryside destination would you suggest for a UK-bound traveller who wants to stay away from city life?

Burwood: Go west, young man or woman, to Wales or to Cornwall. Wales has everything: mountains, seashore, 641 historic castles and 12 million sheep! Cornish people still think of themselves as different, separated from the rest of the English by the River Tamar. Surrounded on three sides by the sea, Cornwall is dotted with small coves and fishing villages such as Port Isaac, which doubles as ‘Port Wenn’ for Doc Martin aficionados. With a cream tea in Cornwall the jam goes on the scone first, then the cream. In Devon it is the other way around!

5. You must have seen a lot of the UK and Europe yourself. What destination surprised you the most and why?

Burwood: Liverpool. My image was of a city that happened to produce some good musicians and a decent football (soccer) club, but was essentially an old, slightly rundown, industrial city. How wrong could I be? Sure, the history of the Beatles is prominent, but on a visit earlier this year I found that the dockside is now a thriving tourist area full of museums and restaurants and the city, with its surrounds, has a buzz and great sense of confidence.

And in Europe, the Rhone Valley and Provence, even on a second visit, continue to amaze.

The Beatles Story Exhibition