Jacqueline Dobson, President of Barrhead Travel, has scooped one of the UK’s top travel industry accolades during the recent Travel Trade Gazette Top 50 Awards after what she described as “the most challenging year” of her career.
Dobson’s award marked a hat-trick of award wins for Barrhead Travel. The Glasgow-headquartered business was also recognised as the nation’s best Touring and Adventure travel agency while its Falkirk store claimed the title of Best Travel Agency in Scotland. Its Belfast store was also named runner up in the Best Travel Agency in Northern Ireland category.
Dobson said:
“It is such an honour to be recognised by the industry this fashion. I have worked in every part of the business for two decades but the last twelve months have, by far, been the most challenging of my career.
“The awards that we have been recognised for reflect the dedication from our employees across the business who have worked so hard to support our customers during these difficult times.
“The whole travel sector has been dramatically impacted by Covid-19. Thanks to a lot of commitment and innovation, we have weathered the storm. We’ve been making holiday dreams come true for over 46 years and we’re looking forward to doing the same for the next 46.”
TTG Editor, Sophie Griffiths, said: “Jacqueline is an incredibly worthy recipient – having worked her way up through Barrhead Travel and now, as president, working tirelessly to support and protect her own employees but also the wider travel industry, which has been under immense pressure due to the pandemic.
“From protecting jobs by securing a government contract to allow furloughed staff to work for the NHS on contact tracing and helping the vaccine rollout to lobbying the government to support the travel industry – she is a true force for good in our industry.”
Barrhead Travel, who have a network of over 85 locations across the UK, will begin to reopen their store network from 12th April in England and 26th April in Scotland as the teams begin to prepare for a holiday booking boom in the wake of lockdown restrictions being eased.