Bristol-based Marco Polo Travel was named Top Travel Agency in the Adventure Travel Awards 2018.
Owner Polly Davies, who set up the agency in 1989 as the country’s first adventure specialist agency, said she puts the business’s success down to the team’s wide travelling experience.
"I spent a full three years travelling the world in the early 80s - Kenya, Sudan, Egypt, Australia, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India.
"When I came back, I worked for Trailfinders for 18 months, but I could see there was a gap in the market for an agency that truly specialised in adventure travel."
Her colleague Ian Robarts, meanwhile, has lived in Hong Kong, travelled extensively through Asia, and overlanded in Africa, while Anita Sach has lived and worked in Vietnam.
Marco Polo Travel was the first travel agency that operators including Explore and InnTravel ever worked with, Davies pointed out.
"Explore hadn’t thought about working with agents but I said, ’I’ve been to every destination in your brochure – I can sell it.’ So they sent me 20 brochures and I sold 20 holidays."
Davies said the agency is lucky to enjoy a 93% repeat rate, and "customers who really do listen to me, if I don’t think something is quite right for them."
"With adventure, it’s so important to manage customers’ expectations appropriately," she added. "If they are used to a comfortable holiday in Europe, then you send them on an adventure holiday with shared loos down the corridor, you really do have to spell it out."
Other winners included Exodus in the Giving Back category, for an initiative which saw it send 2,017 disadvantaged children on educational day trips to learn about their own heritage. Urban Adventures won Innovation of the Year for its In Focus tours, which help travellers understand more about local issues in the countries they are visiting.
Brighter PR won the Marketing Campaign category for its Jordan Adventure Matters campaign on behalf of the Jordan Tourist Board, while Exodus managing director Peter Burrell received the Contribution to Adventure Travel award.
The awards were presented as part of the Adventure Travel Conference 2018.
