It’s official, we’ve been named the ‘Top Luxury Responsible Travel Agency’ by TTG at the TTG Luxury Top 20 Travel Agency Awards 2025, and are also included in the Top 20 Luxury Travel Agency list. This, the inaugural Top 20 awards, celebrating the best travel agencies across the country, no matter their size or business model.
It’s an absolute honour to be the first recipient of this award, especially as we were up against such esteemed competition. Although this isn’t something that’s happened overnight, we have worked hard over the last three years to be more conscious of our actions as an agency, calling out where we believe things need to change, play an active role in the community, find creative ways to both improve the experiences for our clients whilst improving their impacts when travelling and encourage our peers in the industry to follow our lead.
Top Luxury Responsible Travel Agency
It started three years ago, when we entered ourselves for another award. Although not specifically for responsible travel, there was a large element in that area. Having recalled what we had done, we realised that we had covered quite a lot of ground already and sparked the idea that there was a lot we could achieve.
We started with our Responsible Travel Guide, which now features in all our emails and correspondence as a reminder of the things we should be doing when we travel. Jackie only wrote a piece for the Journal a few weeks ago about some of the impacts tourists have when they travel to the Algarve – the impacts of alcohol on the community, water usage, electricity usage and local business.
We then set our sights on a wider policy, with a vision of what we wanted to achieve and our key goals with our ESG policy. These have been the founding principles of everything we have done over the last couple of years. This was also at the same time we enrolled in TTG’s Sustainable Travel Advisors scheme, which gives a foundation knowledge of the principles of selling responsible travel, and gave us the impetus to go further, including launching our own Animal Welfare Policy.
Ashley has since spoken at ABTA’s Carbon Literacy day a couple of times, has contributed to a roundtable on animal welfare, and won Advantage’s inaugural ESG award in 2023. This, along with attending the ABTA Sustainable Tourism Conferences, and TTG’s own Fairer Travel Days each year.
TTG’s Fairer Travel Day
There is no such thing as a completely sustainable holiday, just a higher quality one, but what we can do is help improve the impact of the holidays we sell – either environmentally by offering more efficient flight routes or more train travel, or socially, by mitigating the impact of overtourism and promoting destinations where there is undertourism. However, we can all do our bit, and we advocate this approach to our fellow agents, as we believe this is an important element of being a true expert in the industry – it’s not just about selling whatever’s the cheapest, but having an understanding of how we can travel better.
TTG’s comments on why we won the award were really lovely –
“This bold and impressive agency truly walks the walk on sustainability, with the intelligence of an agency far bigger than its boutique size. From dedicated Environmental, Social and Governance policies and animal welfare standards to a bespoke Responsible Travel Guide, the team’s efforts are embedded at every level. Praise was given for the team’s diversity-driven marketing refresh, use of reclaimed plastic banners and extensive sustainability training. Most striking was the team’s ability to inspire change in others – actively guiding clients towards more immersive, ethical travel. Their impact spans globally and locally, from community work overseas to raising funds for a dog rescue centre in Albufeira. This small but mighty agency is proving travel can be a genuine force for good.”
TTG Top 20 Luxury Travel Agencies by TTG Luxury. Wednesday 12th November 2025. The Royal Lancaster London. ©Steve Dunlop Photographer. Photography by Steve Dunlop www.stevedunlop.com
However, it’s not just all about us; it’s about all the other agents who think the same as us – the true professionals in our industry who want to make a difference. We can’t be experts in everything, so whether that’s animal welfare, overtourism, social impacts, the environment, community tourism, or community, there are so many different aspects to being more responsible. We’ll continue to campaign for change where we believe there’s something to be said about the impact of alcohol on both flying and in destination, and that impact on the community and others; the impact of large megaships on overtourism and the environmental impact of ever-expanding resorts.
There’s no endpoint, there’s always work to be done, but we’re committed to sticking to that journey and advocating that being a responsible travel agent means you’re booking with a better one at the same time.
