Andrew Dunn is the mastermind behind Scott Dunn, the luxury tour operator voted by the readers of Condè Nast Traveller as the number one specialist tour operator in 2017.
Andrew was born in Hampshire in the UK in 1963. He studied biology and psychology at Oxford Brooks. He started out in the world of tourism thanks to one of his passions, he wanted to ski for free, and so at the age of 22, he started his own ski company in 1986. Today, Scott Dunn is one of the leading tour operators offering tailor-made holidays, due to its leader’s passion for travel and its utmost attention to detail. The philosophy of the company founded by Dunn is that nothing is too much trouble for its guests. On one occasion they closed a pyramid in Egypt for a guest to enjoy a private dinner.
Andrew is the chairman for life of the company since 2010 and provides support to the board in non-executive functions, contributing to developing the Scott Dunn brand and making sure its guests, as he calls them, have “the best holidays money can buy”.
According to the Financial Times, Andrew started Scott Dunn with a £5000 bank loan. After talking with his grandmother, who was also his mentor, about the company name, they decided to call its Scott Dunn. Scott was his father’s name, and also his grandfather’s and great grandfather’s. With the money from the bank loan, Andrew rented two chalets in Champery, Switzerland, set up an office in London and the rest is history. The company today has profits of £68 million and employs 170 people in the UK.
Dunn quickly realised that the success of a ski company was entirely dependent on snow conditions and they wouldn’t always be ideal, so he had to give his guests something different to retain them. This led him to offer tailor-made luxury services and focusing on a more personalised service.
In an interview in the Hong Kong Tatler magazine, Dunn says: “The level of service was so important in the early days. Little things such as offering guests a wakeup call service with a cup of tea, taking their skis down to the lift, and making the chalet a luxurious ‘home from home’ made us stand apart.”
Today, Scott Dunn operates all around the world, creating travel experiences ranging from wellness retreats, safaris in Masai Mara in Kenya, and “last chance trips” to Antartica and other destinations. Africa, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, India, Oman, Dubai and New Zealand are the most requested holiday spots by their customers. In 2017, the tour operator turned its attention to more destinations including Bhutan, Canada, Oman and Japan and also opened a new office in Singapore.
