Paul Strachan, Scots founder of Asian river boat holiday company Pandaw Cruises has set up a new UK company to sell packages direct to the British market.
The new company has been accredited by Air Travel Organisers Licensing or "ATOL bonded", a necessary step for all would-be travel retailers complying with the strict UK rules guaranteeing refunds in the case of failure, allowing them to sell flight-inclusive holidays from the UK.
Pandaw this year celebrates two decades since its maiden cruise up Burma's Irrawaddy River in 1995, the accidental offshoot of Strachan's academic interests in Burmese language, arts and culture. Since then the company has expanded onto the other rivers of South and Southeast Asia, including the Chindwin (Burma), the Brahmaputra (India), the lower Mekong (Vietnam and Cambodia), and the Red River (Vietnam).
Strachan who first experienced Burma as a teenager in the 1980s working on a jungle power station for Clydebank civil engineers John Brown and Company, said: "As more and more competitors have come into the market that we opened up, we felt it was time to do some more pioneering. We're constantly trying to go further and further up these rivers into remoter areas. We're particularly excited about new cruises with smaller 10-cabin boats that are able to negotiate rapids and get into the mountainous heart of Southeast Asia, in countries like Laos and deep into the Tonkinese Alps in Vietnam. These are countries of caves and waterfalls that are some of the most beautiful and unspoiled parts of the world."
Pandaw's largest customer base consists of Australians, followed by Brits and then Americans, all markets that the company intends to grow.
"We're also trying to grow our direct-sales market in the US," Strachan said, referring to Pandaw's desire to sell more of its product directly rather than through partner river cruise lines and operators.
"The ships we build today are much the same as the ships we built 20 years ago," he added "They are the same open-decked style, which is something we believe in passionately as it allows breezes - and the passengers - to circulate freely. Pandaw ships are exactly how ships were 100 years ago on the Irrawaddy, and they were designed like that for good reason."
Last year Pandaw's Singapore parent company achieved a turnover of $23 million (£15.47m). Strachan, who lives in Perthshire, said that he considered establishing the new UK offshoot closer to home, but chose London over Scotland because of "constitutional uncertainty potentially adding even more complexity to existing travel market red tape", also previous experience of a "regrettable lack of travel industry expertise" north of the Border.
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