Tarsh, who was also the founding chair of the European Tour Operators Association (Etoa), entered the travel industry despite initially training as a barrister.

After an early career running the Overseas Visitors Club in London, Tarsh acquired Trafalgar Travel, which at the time took long-haul visitors on escorted coach tours around Europe. After building the business, he sold to a South African entrepreneur, who kept him on to run it for almost a decade before he left to found Insight.

Insight competed with Trafalgar but was differentiated with a superior product and innovative marketing and earned Tarsh a Queen’s Award for Export Achievement.

In 1990, he became the founding chair of Etoa, which was established to lobby for the whole industry at EU level. 

Aged 60, Tarsh sold Insight to the same businessman who bought Trafalgar from him and he dedicated the rest of his life to charity.

An early hit was the establishment of the Donkey Derby, an annual fair and donkey racing event in Richmond in aid of the homeless charity Shelter. 

He took an interest in Relate, rising to become chair in 2006, a position he held until 2012.

He also became the chair and president of several other charitable institutions, earning an OBE for his work in 2006, which often meant staging events in his own home.

Tarsh died on 10 May, two decades after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He is survived by Helen, his wife of 62 years, four children and eight grandchildren.