“Trading has been consistent,” he added.Mr Long has great hopes for First Choice, claiming that despite the turmoil he has “never felt better” about the company “It’s the tip of the iceberg, as we see it. The group coped with the ravages of the war in Iraq, even managing to narrow its first-half losses (travel companies make all their money over the summer).Although Friday’s profit warning from MyTravel pointed to a tougher summer than the industry had been expecting, there was no hint of concern from him when we had met just one day earlier. The picture of calm, sitting in shirtsleeves in his PR firm’s City offices, he brushed off a suggestion that the hottest summer since 1976 was taking its toll on the so-called “lates market”, claiming that the weather had little influence on booking habits. Not the “in your face enforced entertainment” of a Club Med, he quickly interjects, something far subtler.Either way, it seems to be working. And we’re all going to go off skiing together and, yeah, wouldn’t it be nice if I learnt to sail?”The company has also been moving away from offering “generic” one and two-star accommodation, creating more of a “club” atmosphere in the exclusive hotels it sources. They would say: “Yeah, I want to go to a villa with my family for two weeks in August but actually, I wouldn’t mind a weekend break with my wife, and I really haven’t climbed one of these mountains I fancy doing that with one of my pals.

If a week in the Spanish sun sounds tame, holidaymakers can choose any number of more energetic pursuits, from scuba-diving in the Red Sea to mountain-biking in the Pyrenees. He ascribes First Choice’s success to its flexible business model – it rents, rather than owns, expensive assets such as hotels and aircraft, and it chases margins, not sales, higher.The company, which started life as Owners Abroad in 1973, has spent the past five years expanding its “specialist holidays” division. “I’ve never looked back since because I love the business,” he says.Mr Long has certainly been put through his paces during the past few months. The fall-out from the 11 September attacks brought one rival – MyTravel – to its knees and destabilised the entire industry. It sounds a bit more glamorous than it is,” he insists.After almost two decades selling package holidays, the 51-year-old Mr Long should have a good feel for what makes a top beach towel spot. He is busy negotiating deals with Croatian hoteliers for summer 2005, although he says Brazil, South Africa and Bulgaria are all on his radar screen.Considering the aptly named Mr Long (he is tall and lanky) says he only entered the travel industry “by default”, he has made a good name for himself.

“In terms of challenges, this has been the toughest in the nearly 20 years that I’ve been in this industry It’s the length of the uncertainty we’ve seen,” he laments. He has transformed First Choice from a “basket case” in the mid-Nineties to one of the best-run travel companies in Europe.Trained as an accountant, Mr Long started out in the more prosaic world of construction. He swapped BTR, now Invensys, for the buzz of ILG in 1984, where he ran Intasun until Harry Goodman’s empire went bust in spectacular fashion during the 1991 Gulf War. But then surely life is just one big holiday when you run a travel company?

For a man yet to take his summer holiday, Peter Long doesn’t look in need of a break.