29 Apr Travel Leaders’ Prestigious “Associate of the Year” Awarded to Virginia Beach-based Travel Agency

Local Travel Agency Owners, Bruce and Carol Horner, Are Honored with National Award

Orlando, FL (April 29, 2017) — Today, Virginia Beach-based Travel Leaders Associates Bruce and Carol Horner, were honored as the best among hundreds of Travel Leaders (www.TravelLeaders.com) travel agency locations nationally. This is the second time that the Horners have earned Travel Leaders’ prestigious “Associate of the Year” award, which is bestowed upon the Travel Leaders Associate (franchisee) who most epitomizes excellence in service to clients and effectively represents the Travel Leaders brand over the course of the past year. The Horners received their award during a special ceremony at the 2017 Travel Leaders International Conference taking place at Loews Royal Pacific Resort at Universal Orlando.

“Bruce and Carol Horner have now been named ‘Associate of the Year’ on two separate occasions – the first time was in 2006 – which is a very rare feat.  What this means is that they have been masterful in evolving to meet the ever-changing needs of their clients and adapting to incorporate new technology and programs to operate a very successful business,” said Roger E. Block, CTC, President of Travel Leaders Network, America’s largest retail travel agency company. “Bruce and Carol have used their passion and expertise to continually surpass the expectations of their clients, in terms of service, value and peace-of-mind – a recipe that is key to their agency’s success and future growth. I am very proud to honor Bruce and Carol with our Associate of the Year award.”

As co-owners, the husband and wife team center their agency on three major areas of travel:

• Business/government travel management for small, mid-size and large corporations, the military and government agencies striving to control cost, enforce travel policies
• Leisure travel for a full range of vacation options including family travel, cruises, destination weddings and honeymoons, and exotic around-the-world travel to regions such as Australia and New Zealand, the Middle East, Africa, South America, South Pacific, as well as the two most popular: Europe and Mexico; and
• Incentive travel programs for companies rewarding their best employees or most loyal clientele with earned trips to exciting travel destinations. This involves planning and executing the entire program from selecting the destination and hotels/resorts, creating special registration sites, managing all travel, escorting the participants and serving as their onsite staff. Their largest incentive group was nearly 400 travelers.

The Horners are the epitome of a family-owned business success story. Carol Horner began working part-time in the travel industry during college by answering phones and filing paperwork. When she and Bruce married, they purchased their own travel agency. They instilled the love of travel in their children, who have all lived or studied abroad. Approximately six years ago, their son David joined their Virginia Beach agency to significantly increase sales within their corporate travel management division.  He used his background in financial sales, as well as creatively tapping into LinkedIn and other social media tools, to grow their “prospect” list into active client accounts.  Additionally, he launched YouTube training videos for their customers to help them through the adoption.

In order to be considered for the Associate of the Year award, Bruce and Carol Horner first had to earn Travel Leaders’ “Agency of Excellence” award. Only 25 franchisees nationally were honored with that distinction in 2017.  The Horners have received this distinction for multiple years. To earn the “Agency of Excellence” award, Travel Leaders agencies are scored in several categories that reflect business growth; utilization of marketing programs to effectively reach local consumers; participation in key local and national business networking meetings, and in training programs to enhance service to their clients, as well as their overall promotion of the Travel Leaders brand.

To learn more about Carol, go here.  Travel Leaders Virginia Beach is located at 5386 Kemps River Drive, Suite 113, Virginia Beach, VA. The agency can also be found online at TravelLeaders.com/vabeachva or their experts can be reached by calling 757-424-0400. “Travel Better” with Travel Leaders.

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About Travel Leaders Network

Travel Leaders Network assists millions of leisure and business travelers, annually, and is the largest seller of luxury travel, cruises, river cruises and tours in the travel agency industry. Led by flagship Travel Leaders-branded travel agencies (www.travelleaders.com), the network includes nearly 7,000 Associates and Member travel agencies locations in the United States and Canada and represents more than $17 billion in annual sales volume.  Travel Leaders Network’s award-winning Agent Profiler agent-locator, marketing, technology, supplier partnerships and educational programs are designed around our travel agents’ commitment to our vacation and business travel clients in providing a progressive approach toward each unique travel experience. Travel Leaders Network is a Travel Leaders Group LLC company.