Sarah McCarthy has won the prestigious title of Top Performing Travel Counsellor in Ireland for the ninth time. The Cork based Travel Counsellor was recognised at Travel Counsellors’ annual global conference, which took place in the SEC, Glasgow.

Sarah, who has been with Travel Counsellors since 2006, scooped the award at the glamorous event which recognises excellence within the Travel Counsellors’ global network of franchisees.

Commenting on her win, she said: “It is such an honour to be named Top Performing Travel Counsellor in Ireland. I started my career with Travel Counsellors in 2006 and I’ve never looked back. I am so lucky to wake up every day and do the job I love and it means the world to me to be recognised for my passion and commitment.”

Commending Sarah on her victory, General Manager of Travel Counsellors Ireland, Cathy Burke said: “We are all so proud of Sarah’s win. She has shown nothing but dedication and success throughout her 12 years with Travel Counsellors and we couldn’t be more proud to have her on our team.

“At Travel Counsellors, we believe in putting people first, creating personal, positive memories for our customers and selling travel in a human-to-human way. Sarah is a thoroughly deserving winner of this award for doing exactly that.”

The three-day global conference saw a record guest-list of over 1700 delegates, including Travel Counsellors Ireland’s HQ team and 50 members of Travel Counsellors Ireland and their partners.

The theme of the weekend, ‘TC Experience’, focused on the experiences that Travel Counsellors provide for their corporate and leisure travel customers, as well as exploring the business growth opportunities that individual Travel Counsellors can enjoy with the support of the tools, technology and community that the company provides.

Guests heard about the latest high-tech developments in the company including an advanced marketing system that enables Travel Counsellors to create and send highly personalised communications to customers and further enhancement of the company’s ‘myTC’ app.  Also presented was an updated version of the in-house booking system Phenix, which now includes automated reminders for Travel Counsellors to contact their clients in relation to events such as birthdays and anniversaries along with upcoming travel itineraries.

During the action-packed three-day event, conference guests were entertained by celebrities and inspired by motivational speakers, such as six-times Olympic champion and track cyclist Sir Chris Hoy MBE. Delegates also networked with nearly 300 travel suppliers, including headline sponsors Emirates, Celebrity Cruises, APT, Rocky Mountaineer, Rentalcars, Club Med and Travelport.

Entertainment was provided by Scottish stand-up comedian Des Clarke and singer-songwriter Marti Pellow, as well as a DJ set and performance by multi-platinum selling and award-winning artist, Craig David.