A Workington travel agent has scooped two national awards and had a star named after them after beating more than 300 independent travel agents nationally.

Craig Travel, in Murray Road, attended the Jet2 conference in Belek, Turkey to receive the top seller for on-tour packages award, which was presented by musician and actor Martin Kemp.

The award was for selling celebration packages, such as stag, hen and birthday type breaks.

It was a complete surprise for the team, who were unaware of their award until the presentation.

Manager of Craig Travel, Natasha Wallace, said: "Four of our staff went to Turkey for the conference, Pamela Watson and Nicola Shepherd from this office and Andrew Nelson and Craig Wetheral from our Altrincham branch.

"We've had a really good year since we moved on to Murray Road, there has been a big increase in sales."

Pamela Watson, who received the award said that Martin Kemp was "a really nice proper gentleman".

Craig Travel received the award and a deed showing a star in the Monoceros constellation has been named 'Craig Travel - Workington'.

This is the second award in quick succession for the travel agent, who also achieved the Gold Medal in the Hays travel conference awards, held in the Algarve in October.

The Gold Medal is presented for top percentage increase in sales and was collected by Pamela Watson and Nicola Shepherd.

Natasha attributes the success of the awards to excellent customer service. She said: "We get a lot of repeat customers as we give the customer exactly what they want. I'd like to thank all our customers, without them we wouldn't have got it."

She added: "It's an amazing achievement really for such a small shop against the rest of the country's independent agents."