Luxury Travel Designer of the Year shares business tips after scooping milestone award

It’s been just a few weeks since Angela Mayall was crowned Luxury Travel Designer of the Year at the TTG Luxury Travel Awards 2024, and the news still hasn’t sunk in. 

“I’m still on a high from that day!” she says. “Having worked incredibly hard in the luxury field for so many years this really is the icing on the cake for my business.”  

It was well deserved icing. Since joining Designer Travel in 2008, Mayall has made a name for herself as one of the sector’s most passionate independent agents. A self-described ‘control freak’, she will go to any length to delight her clients in her pursuit to make every holiday an unforgettable experience.  

Today, she holds a 98% repeat booking rate, a statistic most agents would love to emulate. In 2023, she celebrated a record-breaking year, shattering her previous sales record by 26% during the judging period for the TTG Luxury Travel Awards.

Mayall says several of her clients have been loyal to her for more than 15 years, and with some paying over £150,000 for their trips, have come to view her as more of an essential travel confidant than an agent. 

But success hasn’t come easy: Mayall acknowledges her lack of work-life balance was something she did little to address up until fairly recently, when she decided to take on some admin support last year to great effect. 

Now having raised the bar when it comes to what a luxury agent could be achieving, she puts her incredible success down to a range of key things when it comes to selling high-end holidays – here’s how she does it.