The awards, now in their seventh year, saw Yorkshire-based agency Beverley Travel named the UK & Ireland’s No.1 Travel Agency, with co-director Kelly Cheesman telling TTG she believed her background, and that of business partner Karl Douglas, had helped set the agency apart from competitors. 

“We’re quite new and we came into the industry in 2017 from a business background,” she said. “There are some very traditional views of how running a travel business should be like and we’ve come into this very differently and maybe that’s it.”

After his agency scooped the Intrepid Sustainable Travel Champion of the Year award, Deben Travel managing director Lee Hunt said the business had been on "a journey" to operate in a greener way in recent years following a tree-planting initiative "and building from there".

“Whether it be recycling old brochures, changing in-store lights to LED or working with natural energy suppliers, everything we try to do is in a sustainable way," said Hunt.

He also took the opportunity to launch an appeal to the wider industry, urging businesses to make all the necessary changes to be more environmentally conscious. 

“It’s really important that we put the environment at the forefront of everything we do because we won’t have our industry if the environment is in a state,” he added.

Sandra McAllister, managing director of Althams Travel, was honoured with the evening’s Contribution to Travel award, with her work fighting for sector-specific support and lobbying then-chancellor Rishi Sunak during Covid among the tributes paid to her.

McAllister told TTG her secret to running a successful team was creating a workplace that was a “very friendly and happy place to be.”

“I’ve never asked anybody to do something that I wouldn’t do myself,” she said backstage. “Even though I am the managing director, I still book holidays. I think that’s important because you know what all the staff further down the line are going through."

Meanwhile, ArrangeMY Escape managing director Jennifer Lynch, whose team were named Top Weddings and Honeymoon Agency, thanked her staff for their hard work.

“Every single one of us gets involved, whether that be seeing the customer in store or doing a wedding show or coming up with an idea, we all have a part to play in the process of the weddings and honeymoons we create,” she said.