Paul Johnstone will open the doors of Now Let’s Travel in the Jesmond area of Newcastle on August 19 following an “absolutely crazy few months” of expansion after taking home both Cruise Agent of the Year and Top Agent of the Year at the TTG ceremony in London last September.

Johnstone has operated the business, which has eight employees, through a website and call centre since 2013 as part of Barrhead Travel’s Brilliant Travel arm of its managed service travel partner agencies.

He said scooping the two awards had resulted in “amazing exposure” for the business and that sales had soared “from strength to strength”.

“I was just completely shocked to win one award, let alone two,” he told TTG. “The amount of customers commenting on our Facebook page saying congratulations was brilliant, as social media is huge for us from a booking point of view. One idea we had planned was a ‘recommend a friend’ scheme, but after winning the awards we actually didn’t need to – so many people told their friends about us anyway.”

The new shop, a joint venture between Johnstone and business partner Amanda Simmonds, will have a focus on “expanding product in the cruise market”, with two new members of staff employed to run it.

The agency will also sell holidays through its “sub-brand” Jesmond Holiday Bureau, and will feature its own range of beachwear available to buy in-store. “Amanda had the idea to stock a range of designer beachwear as we’ve opened in a reasonably affluent area of Newcastle,” Johnstone explained.“It’s an extra thing to make people come inside as sometimes it’s quite difficult to find stuff out of season and we’ve got exclusivity with a number of brands to sell them in the north-east.

 “It’s quite a strange feeling opening a store as we’ve always been on the web and through call centres, but having our own shop will be a great chance to meet customers face-to-face,” he added.