A BARNEY travel agent, renowned for its charity fundraising drives, has been declared the best in the north.
Staff of Kyle Travel are celebrating after they attended The Travel Network Group (TTNG) conference where they were awarded the “Best Shop” title earlier this month.
This comes after a successful 2021, when the business was initially identified as one of the top 50 travel agents in the country by the Travel Trade Gazette and went on to be named overall runner-up.
It is the first time that the TTNG awards have been held, making Kyle Travel Barnard Castle the inaugural winners.
Branch manager Vicki King said: “It means the world to us – it is amazing. We knew there was an award [at the conference] but we didn’t know what it was for.”
It later emerged that the title was a combination of sales performance, dynamism as a team and customers service. Ms King, who runs the shop along with senior travel consultants Kim Race, Olivia Buchanan and Morag Bowman, added: “The four dynamos is how they described us.”
The manager explained the award is all the more meaningful considering the hard work staff put in when the travel industry ground to a sudden halt during Covid.
The team had to contact many clients as well as airlines and cruise liners about cancelled travel plans.
The shop is also well known for its support for charity causes having completed an Easter egg drive for the Smile for a Child Charity prior to the pandemic and more recently £531 for the Alzheimer Society
Staff also took part in the Turn Barney Pink campaign where they raised £139 for the Teesdale branch of Cancer Research UK.
The team is continuing its support for Teesdale Day Clubs by collecting customers’ leftover foreign currency which will be converted into Pounds and given to the charity. Anyone with spare currency can drop it off at the Kyle Travel shop in Galgate.
