Absolute Touring

About Us

Oxford Times 'In Business' June/July 2007

Absolutely fabulous

Jennifer Hough discovers a business geared up to promoting the beauty of Oxfordshire and beyond.

Local knowledge and a thoroughly personal service are the key to success for a company which gives private tours throughout the Cotswolds, Oxfordshire and surrounding areas.

Absolute Touring which is based in Summertown, offers trips with experienced guides and chauffeurdriven cars, and prides itself on giving customers that 'wow factor'.

Absolute Touring offers a selection of daily guided tours or tailor-made personal excursions. The beauty of the personal tour is that it can be varied. "It is like driving your own car with a tour guide," explained director Martin Cowell, who previously worked in publishing. "We deliberately pitch to the upper end of the market. We want to take people who are really interested, and who will enjoy the interaction of having their own personal guide."

So when some US visitors requested 'a photo with sheep in the background', Mr Cowell willingly obliged. "I take them wherever they want to go and tell them the history and the stories of the area along the way." And he likes to go off the beaten track. "I recently found a back route down a narrow lane - there was nobody else there. It was a great discovery."

The main aim of Absolute Touring is to give people a tour they won't forget.

Mr Cowell recently drove a high-profile client through the Cotswolds. He said: "Without giving too much away, he was a New York merchant banker on business in London, who wanted see Oxfordshire. "I collected him in London and brought him to the Cotswolds – he was on the phone to New York saying: 'This is amazing. It's just Iike a movie set'."

By going the extra mile, Mr Cowell feels the business will flourish.

"There are other businesses that give tours but none like us," he said. "You have to be interested in people and enjoy telling them all about the area. We get a lot of repeat customers. It's all word-of-mouth really - we want people go home and recommend us."

And despite the recent bad weather, business has not been affected. "Weather doesn't really matter," said Mr Cowell. "Most tourists expect it. We recently had tourists who liked the fact that it was raining because it looked so English!"

But why do the Cotswolds remain such a popular destination? "People come to the Cotswolds because there is nowhere else like it in the world," said Martin. "It is serendipity, really, that it is the way it is," he added. "You had all these people who built these buildings and they have been maintained – it is a wonderful place."

Reproduced in an edited version – by kind permission of the Oxford Times