It is just as well that Martin Dalby, the Center Parcs UK chief executive, does not “do” stress. In the eight years that he has been at the helm of the holiday village operator, he has had to cope with a big fire at Elveden Forest, an outbreak of gastroenteritis at Longleat Forest that threatened to turn into a PR disaster and more changes of ownership and financial structure than most CEOs have to deal with in an entire career.

The consolation throughout his time in charge has been strong performance. Indeed, in the 17 years that the horse-riding Yorkshireman has worked at the company, occupancy has never dropped below 90 per cent - a rate to which most hotel and leisure operators can only aspire.

Mr Dalby, whose father died when he was four, left school at 16 and started as a trainee accountant with Scottish & Newcastle (S&N), the brewer. In his early years, he worked mainly in its managed pub business, then in 1995 he moved to Center Parcs, which it had acquired six years earlier, as finance controller.

He was subsequently promoted to finance director, then in 2000 was made chief excutive of Center Parcs UK just before it was split off from the company's continental villages and sold to the private equity arm of Deutsche Bank. This was followed by a sale and leaseback of its property assets to Hugh Osmond's Sun Capital. Then, in December 2003, the operating company was floated on AIM at 100p a share.

Mr Dalby, in tandem with Martin Robinson, the chairman, led the move to the main market two years later, although the battering that it had taken as a public company forced the duo to recommend a cut-price 80p-a-share offer from Blackstone worth £265 million. The US investment firm then reversed the sale and leaseback by buying back the assets for £825 million.

It is clear that, with the company reunified under a single owner, the married father-of-three has never been happier with the way that the business - founded in 1967 by Piet Derksen, a Dutchman - is going. “We have been able to put away all the skeletons of the past,” he says. “Blackstone are great owners. They don't interfere.”

Center Parcs has sometimes attracted criticism for its prices, especially during school holidays. Mr Dalby admits that prices in the peak summer period can be up to three times higher than in January, but rejects notions of profiteering. “It's about supply and demand and we need to do that to get a good return.”

With occupancy expected to hit 92 per cent this year and no sign of any impact from the consumer spending downturn, Mr Dalby is not about to change a successful business model.

Times Recommends

• US stocks fall below 9,000 mark
• House price fall smallest in seven months
• Wary investors opt to keep cash in safes