Abercrombie & Kent
Abercrombie & Kent
Environmental
Extraordinary expeditions
Over 59 years, Abercrombie & Kent has established itself as a leading luxury travel company specialising in award-winning tailor-made holidays and escorted tours. A specialist in polar exploration, this year marks the 30th anniversary of the group’s fi rst maiden voyage to Antarctica. Will Moffi tt speaks to the groups’ founder and CEO, Geoffrey Kent, about how his military background shaped his appetite for adventure, the challenges of delivering exciting and educational forms of polar exploration, and his plans to expand to Abercrombie’s swelling list of itineraries.
“T
here never was an Abercrombie,” admits Geoffrey Kent with a wry smile, “we made up the name. We had the old farm Land
Rover and that’s how the company started.” Kent is talking, of course, about Abercrombie & Kent, the travel company that he co-founded with his parents in Kenya in 1962. The group has since expanded across the globe, establishing a network of 55 offices in 30 countries, earning a reputation for delivering bespoke tours to far-flung places via car, bus or plane, and luxury cruises by boat. While the Abercrombie & Kent of today occupies the upper echelon of the industry pyramid, as its founder is only too happy to admit, it is a brand that grew from inauspicious beginnings, birthed in East Africa during the twilight years of the British empire. Fresh out of the UK army after serving in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Malta, Kent returned to Nairobi just as Harold Macmillan’s ‘Wind of Change’ speech reverberated across the continent. Its implications for African sovereignty were explicit. In Kenya farms were due to be ceded back to local Africans,
meaning that Kent – and his parents – needed a new profession. The trio decided to refashion the safari concept, bringing home comforts to the bush in the form of tented accommodation, fresh food via mobile refrigerators – then a novelty – and ice cold gin and tonics.
“By 1966, my father [had] left,” Kent says. “About four years later, my mother left. And so I found myself running this company, which had nothing, a couple of cars, three vehicles. So, I immediately got into gear on my own. And I just knew I wanted to use everything I’d learned from the military and have adventures.”
Exploring new realms
One way of doing just that was by boat: venturing to places as remote as Antarctica where Kent and a small team made their first expedition 30 years ago. Soon after Abercrombie’s founder travelled to Peru before travelling the length of the Amazon. “My captain said: ‘I never want to do this again. This is way too hairy,’ but I was so excited. Dodging all those sandbanks and swimming with pink porpoises. It was fantastic.”
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