The Northern Echo’s BUSINESSiQ Awards – to be held at Wynyard Hall in partnership with Amazon – is already working with its first key category sponsor.
The Hays Travel Group will present one of our showpiece awards – Business of the Year – after founder Dame Irene Hays stepped up to back one of the region’s great success stories.
The awards will be transformed for 2025 after our announcement that the headline sponsor will be Amazon – one of the most successful businesses in the world and a major investor across the North East – and the venue will be none other than Wynyard Hall – one of the most prestigious locations in the region.
The event will be held on Friday, April 11 when our guests and sponsors will be able to enjoy the luxury and style of the whole ground floor at Wynyard, including the Statue Gallery, Library, Mirror Room and Ballroom before the awards are handed out in the Conservatory.
Hays is a perfect choice for one of the main awards with Dame Irene – honoured in the 2020 New Year’s honours list for services to training and education – a passionate supporter of the region and the opportunities we need to provide for our young people.
The owner and Chair of Hays Travel told us: “We are passionate about other passionate people who have the great ideas, self-belief, resilience, and tenacity to succeed and create and grow a successful business. That’s why we support the BUSINESSiQ Awards.
“We are proud to be headquartered in the North East. John opened the first Hays Travel shop here in 1980, and it’s been our home since. In addition to our 500 branches across the UK, for the last 30 years we have helped, funded, and supported more than 300 travel entrepreneurs to succeed; and with our input 27 of them and their investors have become millionaires.
“We have had a very successful year. We have exceeded targets, increased passenger numbers, and improved turnover and profit. We continue to grow and - equally as important - to stick to our vision from 43 years ago: ‘To be the most profitable privately owned independent travel agency in the UK, through valuing our people, our customers and the communities where we operate’.
“The BUSINESSiQ Awards is an important event and, for me personally, I always come back having discovered something new; either a business idea, a company I didn’t know existed in our region, or having learned something that I think I could take back and make Hays Travel even better. It’s a lot of fun as well!”
- NOMINATE: If yours is a business that is excelling and growing – or you know of one that deserves to be part of one of the biggest business events of the year – CLICK HERE and nominate them for an award.
- BE A PARTNER: If you want to join Hays Travel as a sponsor in the BUSINESSiQ Awards, you can sponsor a category or co-host a part of the evening by contacting ryan.fenwick@localiq.co.uk
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