George Butterfield and B & R's
Kathy Stewart
Jill Rigby and David Butterfield
Regional Director Lewis Evans hails from Ottawa, but now lives in France and specializes in the French wine regions
Luxury travel company Butterfield & Robinson recently celebrated their 45th anniversary in their accustomed style... slowing down to see the world. Co-founders George and Martha Butterfield hosted a group of their regional directors who had flown in from the far corners of the globe together with local travel folks at their Toronto offices to celebrate the occasion.
The company’s regional directors are locals, living in the destinations where they host B & R’s active luxury cycling or walking tours. These knowledgeable, well-connected and physically fit leaders were on hand to extol the virtues of the areas they know best in the 40 regions their tours traverse, including: Provence, Jordan, Tuscany, Catalonia, Dalmatian Coast, Argentina, Amalfi Coast, Morocco, Bordeaux, Dordogne Valley, Turquoise Coast, Myanmar and Burgundy.
Glasses of fine wines from George and Martha’s son David’s own Butterfield Wines were raised to toast the occasion. David is a winemaker who now resides in Beaune.
George launched his first biking trip of students on a French itinerary together with Martha and her brother, Sidney Robinson, in 1966. But the concept really didn’t catch on with the luxury travel crowd until the late ‘70’s. George and Martha continue to guide at least one tour each year and consider themselves the CEOs of ‘all things slow.’
Besides their stylish Bond Street head office in Toronto, the company has operational centres in Beaune and Arezzo as well as their custom trip division, Bespoke, located in Vancouver.
B & R attracts the majority of its clients from the U.S. but the company’s President, Norman Howe, tells me that Brazilians represent a growing presence on many of their trips and they have also enjoyed an increasing number of Canadian clients... mainly because of the value of our dollar. Kind of odd that the exchange rate would matter much to those shopping for tours that start in the $5,000 range all the way up to $24,000 per person – plus air. Canadians are a strange bunch. Agents should find seeking the odd client for the B & R brand of luxury very rewarding though... commissions on those prices are pretty impressive.
