Strand Travel in Waterford, Republic of Ireland, told TTG it had experienced a surge in sales following last week’s event, after the agency broadcast the news across a variety of social media channels.
“We’ve had an interesting reaction,” said managing director Tom O’Donohoe.
“We had it all over Twitter and as a result we’ve got about €13,000 worth of new business from all different places around the world.
“We’ve got three bookings from Australia – one booking was for €5,000 for five different hotels in Europe.
“The staff had it on Twitter on the night of the awards [April 25] – and the bookings came in on the 26th; we got a great reaction from it. The only thing we can attribute the bookings to is the Twitter response.”
O’Donohoe admitted that he was initially concerned the bookings may have been fake because they were all from new clients. However, after checking the credit card details he confirmed they were genuine.
He is now keen to use the accolade to drum up further interest in the business.
“We’re actually putting the TTG logo up on our website. All the staff are putting on their emails [that we’re] the Republic of Ireland’s number one agency.
He added: “On our Facebook page we’ve had a great reaction.
A lot of clients have rung in and congratulated us. It is a great achievement and it is really down to the staff and it’s great for them… they’re all really delighted.”
Strand Travel was 1 of 10 high street stores to be named as the top in their region at the inaugural TTG Top 50 event. There were also national categories covering cruise, luxury, business travel, call centre, homeworking and online agencies; as well as two special awards.
Garstang Travel in Lancashire was recognised as the number one travel agency in the UK and Ireland.