We were delighted to be able to interview Danie from Little’s Chauffeur Drive. He took Pete, our Head of Commercial on a private tour of Edinburgh ending on Arthur’s Seat to tell us more about the company.

Pete Thanks again Danie for joining us today, we appreciate your time. It would be great if you could tell us a little bit about yourself to start off with and how you got into this line of work?

Danie I’ve worked for Little’s for about 10 years now and before that I was in the travel industry as a tour operator and then a friend of mine had been working for Little’s as a supply driver. He suggested to me that one of the large fashion houses was having a fashion show at Linlithgow Palace and that I might enjoy driving the models to the fashion show! That was 10 years ago and I’m still with the company and still loving it, it’s terrific fun.

Pete You were telling us some great stories in the car earlier. Tell us what you like about working at Little’s.

Danie Well for me it’s the variety. We do the hotel transfers to the airport which is basically our bread-and-butter. Apart from that, we do a lot of tours in the north of Scotland and that’s the thing I love most. The tours going off for a week or 10 days with clients through Glencoe, over to the Isle of Skye, showing off the country especially if they’ve never been to Scotland before.

I love the wondering excitement on their faces. I’ve even had clients from Switzerland who I have picked up from the airport and said to them, “I’m not going to impress you, you are from Switzerland” and then I’ve taken them up through Glencoe or the Applecross peninsula and it’s just as beautiful as Switzerland, it’s different, it’s more green and lush. Some of those roads through the Applecross peninsula and places like that, clients who are wealthy and have travelled to all corners of the world say these are the most beautiful roads in the world. There are just some fabulous little single track roads through Skye, with the passing places and sheep wandering long the road, they just love that.

Pete And can you tell us a little bit about the Little’s experience as a guest? You do private chauffeurs and what about the vehicles you use?

Danie This vehicle that we have travelled in today is a Mercedes V-Class and we would often use these for tours as they are ideal for families. We also have saloon cars such as jaguars that work well for a couple.

For clients, we like to give them the very best experience that we can. When we are off travelling, we always wear a hat as part of our uniform and when we arrive to the hotel, we always try to make it special for the guest. Often the guests will say to me, please call me, James or call me Shirley but, we always stick to Mr and Mrs, we never let that drop. We always try to be as professional as we can be. And it doesn’t matter whether we are driving a president or a prince or someone who has never been in a chauffeur driven car before, we always try to make it as special as we possibly can.

Pete Now, we know the company has a rich history and has been around for a long time, so could you tell us more about that?

Danie Well the company was started in 1966 by two brothers, George and Mike Wills and George’s daughter Heather now runs the company. She does it very well, she runs a very tight ship and they have built the company up. Originally it started in the funeral business and then they diverged into chauffeur drive and now the company is the market leader in Scotland for chauffeur drive. I guess we are a big fish in a small pond so when people come to Scotland, we tend to be the first people that they come to so we always remain professional and look after our guests.

Pete Sustainability is important to the company, can you tell us what are some of the initiatives that the company is doing?

Danie Yes sustainability is very important to us right down to the little things such as never having plastic water bottles in the cars, instead we offer easily recyclable cans of water and we have a fleet of hybrid and electric vehicles. We find for a lot of our clients that is very important especially for longer tours where you can save a lot of energy.

Pete Danie, it’s been great, thank you so much for talking to us today.

If you feel inspired by our interview with Danie from Little’s Chauffeur Drive you can see a sample of our Scotland itineraries where a private chauffeur would make the perfect addition.

For further information or to book a Little’s private chauffeur, feel free to reach out to [email protected]