Someone born in Australia and growing up in India, Mauritius, Afghanistan, Czechoslovakia and Holland is probably fated to open a travel agency. Especially if that person then marries an airline stewardess, as Dinesh Dhamija did, and hatches a plan to attract staff from Finland to India. Surely travel must be in his blood?

"Subconsciously, perhaps," he says - in a manner that suggests he is not interested in musing about his relationship to the industry he has worked in for almost his entire adult life. He has founded two high-profile travel agencies: Flightbookers, and then Ebookers, the country's most successful internet travel agency.

Although the bursting of the dotcom bubble has damaged the image of internet-based businesses, Ebookers continues to thrive. Floated on the Nasdaq and German Neuer Markt exchanges in 1999, it has annual sales of £280m and employs more than 900 staff around the globe - including luring Finns to work in India.

That sort of relocation may come easily to the son of a diplomat. Dhamija's childhood was spent changing countries every three years - including Afghanistan in 1960 when he was 10. "I remember seeing the giant Buddhas in Bamiyan, and Mazar-i-Sharif. I remember it well - the lakes were quite beautiful."

The impetus for a travel agency, rather than just travel, came from his wife, Tani. "In those days air hostesses had to resign when they got married. She knew the travel industry, and I did, so we went and did that."

By 1980 the couple had an agency in Earl's Court, which by 1983 had become Flightbookers. Its growth was helped by Dhamija acting as regional sales agent for a collection of airlines, including Royal Air Nepal. That led to establishing a network of agencies across Europe.

In 1996 came a piece of what Dhamija calls "absolute luck" - he was introduced to the internet's possibilities. "A friend of mine in Germany who developed a [software] booking engine called Sabre - I think it was the first in the world - brought it to me and said, why don't you use this?"

Wary at first, he began to see the benefits when the orders rolled in - although not everyone in the company was convinced. "That was when the luddites came out," laughs Dhamija, "saying, 'oh my God, all the jobs are going to go, we'll be replaced by computers'."

To push the new technology required a bold step - especially for a businessman who was approaching 50. "I left as managing director of Flightbookers and be came an evangelist for this company [Ebookers]."

Dhamija is not afraid of trying something new. What interests him more is whether it works. That might explain why he is a strong supporter of British entry into the euro.

Ebookers' central London headquarters has transparent walls - "glass walls are good because it stops people going to sleep" - but tall, elegantly suited Dhamija is a far cry from the dress-down chic that came in with dotcom.

The market's aversion to dotcoms has has winnowed competition in the travel sector down to five big players: US companies Expedia and Travelocity, Britain's Lastminute.com, airline-backed Opodo and Ebookers.

While many online businesses come and go, Dhamija argues that travel is especially suited to the web. "Gambling is one thing that works, pornography is another, and travel is another. Look at Expedia. At the top of the bubble it had $1.5bn in market capitalisation. Today Expedia's worth $3bn. That's why we know it works."

Ebookers has a head start over its local rivals, argues Dhamija, because of its origins in a bricks and mortar travel agency. That gives it crucial leverage: the agreements it holds with the airlines that sell seats on planes.

Most travel agents do not deal with airlines directly to get seats - they go through middlemen contracted by the airlines. To get the best fares, travel companies need to convince individual airlines to let them have contracts.

"It's priceless. People don't understand how important that relationship is. You have to buy companies to get it.

"It took me four years to get my first contract, in 1984 [with Malaysian airlines]. You just have to keep knocking on doors - keep going back. It took me 15 years to get a contract with British Airways."

With a contract comes access to cheaper fares - "distressed inventory" in Dhamija's terms - and special offers that allow favoured agencies to undercut rivals. "It's crucial, it's your unique selling point."

The battle for contracts explains some of the recent activities by Ebookers' competitors, such as Lastminute's £11m purchase of Travelselect - the holders of a valuable British Airways contract.

"It's a nice barrier to entry," admits Dhamija.

The danger is that more airlines will try to follow budget airlines EasyJet and Ryanair, cutting out agents and routing bookings through their own operations.

That prospect does not bother Dhamija, who says that Ebookers is taking the high road, concentrating on customers who plan ahead for longer trips, rather than the last-minute offers of short haul flights.

"You can't run a business on distressed inventory, because for four months of the year there is no distressed inventory."

Ebookers' target customers are the "cash rich, time poor" clients, who want to travel further afield and can afford to pay more. As a result, 70% of Ebookers' sales are mid-to long-haul flights.

"I see travel as a dream of everyone, because they want to get somewhere else. You're selling something to people that lets them go across the world - they book it so far in advance, they read up about their destination, it's something they look forward to and dream about."

Perhaps as a result of his peripatetic childhood, and the industry he works in, Dhamija does not see his own travels in such poetic terms.

Ask about his interests outside work and he suggests golf - having just come back from a business trip to Chicago that included 18 holes. But later he confesses to being a member of two golf clubs here, and not having time to play at either.

What was the last holiday he took? "Holiday?" he ponders. "Let me ask Amanda." His assistant flips through his diary. "Ah, March. Thailand for a week in March." He then recalls the holiday - at a health spa. Even that was hard work. "I lost 1.1 kilos of fat." He, grimaces. "Can you imagine 1.1 kilos of lard sitting on a table?"

His wife remains involved as a director and the person responsible for Ebookers' operations in India - which has 350 staff at the company's main call centre.

Ebookers' internationalism has brought problems. How does a call centre in India deal with calls from customers in Finland - speaking in Suomi, one of the world's rarer languages? Dhamija offered young Finnish graduates trips to India, with free flights and accommodation, and work for local rates of pay at the call centre.

The prospect of an Indian working holiday drew 200 applications for six places. "They get to travel around in the weekends. And, if they are good, we can offer them a job back in Europe."

A gap year in India that pays for itself - surely that would be popular with British students? "Yes, that's an excellent idea. I'll be exporting British workers to India," he laughs.

The CV

Age 52

Education MA in law, Cambridge University

Career Started work with IBM before opening own travel agency with wife Tani. Established Flightbookers agency in 1983, which grew to be one of Britain's top 10 travel agencies. Added an internet arm in 1996, which was spun off as Ebookers in 1999, raising £40m. In 2000 Ebookers bought its parent, Flightbookers, for £10m. Chairman and chief executive of Ebookers since foundation

Family Married to Tani, with sons Biren and Darun

Home Flat in Westminster, central London

Leisure Golf