Belmond

Thank you so much.

There's a moment on the train to Machu Picchu, and yes, we're taking you on that illustrious Belmond Hiram Bingham train today.

The moment when the mountains close in, Urabamba River starts roaring beside the tracks, and you realize you're writing into a story that's been unfolding for 5,000 years.

Welcome to Wherever It Leads.

A country that jails its presidents and finds its non-voters, say what you want, but Peruvians take their democracy personally.

So we were fortunate to actually travel this country, and perhaps the best way to understand Peru is by train, on some of the highest and most beautiful rail lines on the planet.

Perurail and Belmond do an absolutely marvelous job, and until the Chinchero airport is built, which is a story for another day, You'll usually start those adventures where the trains don't go.

Lima, on the coast.

Tell me about this concept around access and trust because I think they are two of the really important pillars, access, trust and timing, I'm going to say, the important pillars that are behind the successful delivery of an elevated travel experience.

Michael spoke to those a little bit earlier in a little bit of detail earlier, how do each of those show up in your day-to-day work with clients? And also perhaps with your advisory board roles, whether it's with Virtuoso, I know you've worked very closely with Belmond and with Silversea and anyone else that you're working with.

What does it mean in practice for what your clients experience or what clients of other Virtuoso advisors might experience in relation to access, trust and timing? Yes,

look, I think that especially in today, it's even more critical now with the AI and overload.

But yes, uh, a few of the, the guest highlights.

We have the CEO of Belmond, Dan Ruff, joining us to tell us about, you know, the luxury hospitality, but more importantly, luxury slow tourism, which as we know, is a growing sector, particularly with the trains, uh, that they have as well with Belmond.

So that's going to be a really interesting discussion.

Another one with two big names in the world of big retail, we're talking shopping malls and department stores.