02 Sep 2013
DAVID URQUHART TRAVEL CELEBRATE THEIR 30TH ANNIVERSARYWITH A RAFT OF DEVELOPMENTS, INCLUDING THREE NEW DEPARTURE REGIONS, NEW DESTINATIONS AND A PRESTIGIOUS BRITISH TRAVEL AWARDS SHORTLISTING, PLUS A ROLLING, BULGING PORTFOLIO OF ...
- OUTSTANDING VALUE WINTER SUN, BRITISH SEASIDE AND CITY BREAKS
- UNIQUE TO DAVID URQUHART TRIPS, FROM SCOTTISH ISLAND HOPPING TO NEW BORDERS DESTINATIONS
- SEASONAL AND SPECIALIST TRIPS, FROM THE EDINBURGH TATTOO TO WWI CENTENARY TOURS AND D-DAY 70TH ANNIVERSARY CRUISES
... A MERE GLIMPSE THROUGH THE STEAMED UP WINDOW OF 'THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF DAVID URQUHART' ...
Over the last 30 years, David Urquhart Travel has sent some 4 million travellers to over 200 destinations, with over 10,000 people simultaneously enjoying a DUT break in any given high season.
Whether short breaks, event trips, group tours, winter sun, long stay holidays, cruises or seasonal specials; whatever the yen, from beach lounging to puffin spotting, stately homes to horse betting, David Urquhart Travel and Sky Travel has something, somewhere for everybody - even Mystery Breaks for the undecided. The only commonality, within an annually expanding programme of tours, is the company's underpinning ethos of offering extraordinary value for money for an exceptional service.
Since sending his first coachload off to the Highlands in 1983, David Urquhart's list of pick-up points has grown to nearly 200, criss-crossing the UK from Bournemouth to Inverness and ensuring that every holiday starts and finishes locally, with no diversions, no changes and the minimum of hassle. The company - still very much captained by David Urquhart - is now the UK's largest independent coach tour company with David Urquhart Sky Travel rapidly catching up on the Flight and Cruise side; adding new destinations every year and sewing up the Costas, Balearics, Algarve and Canaries for scorching sunshine deals.
The secret to the company's success is twofold:
- a straightforward business model of cutting out the middlemen, dealing directly with flight operators and hotels, to ensure the best possible deals are passed directly back to their customers.
- an entirely customer focused approach, founded on David's mantra of, "If it's not good enough for your parents, your best friend or your neighbour, it's not good enough for our customers"; resulting in incredible customer loyalty, with many regularly taking over ten breaks per year.
DAVID URQUHART NEWS ...
THE BRITISH TRAVEL AWARDS 2013 ...
Direct from beating National Express and Shearings to the Gold Award in the Best 50+ Coach Company category of the 50+ Awards, David Urquhart Travel are very pleased to have been shortlisted in the Best Coach Holiday category of The British Travel Awards 2013. Not least for its prestigious acknowledgement of their core mission: to offer the best possible service with the best possible value for money.
Said David Urquhart of the nomination, "We are thrilled to be on the shortlist of the British Travel Awards, the Oscars of the travel industry; and, while it is wonderful to be recognised by the industry and to be in such great company on the shortlist, I am particularly pleased that our customers will be given a chance to vote. As a proudly customer-centric company, their opinion is paramount and is the fuel that has driven David Urquhart coaches for the last 30 years. I would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of them."
WINTER SUN 2013 ...
Finessing the same DUT policy of dealing directly with operators and hotels and passing on the savings, David Urquhart Sky Travel offers a huge range of destinations, from Berlin to Barbados, from City Breaks to Cruises, with Winter sun deals that are truly hard to beat.
A vast selection of over 100 hotels are each personally checked, on a regular basis, by the David Urquhart Sky Travel team to both maintain a trusted standard of service and quality and build an invaluable, first hand local knowledge.
The strapline promises, "Seldom beaten on price, never beaten on service"; and, when factoring in winter fuel and food bills, David Urquhart Sky Travel holidays' unbelievable value for money regularly makes a nonsense of staying at home:
- 6 weeks in the Algarve in a 4* self catering aparthotel complex starting at just £519pp, including flights, accommodation and private taxi resort transfers.
- 6 weeks 4* all inclusive on Lanzarote starting at just £1639pp, for those who prefer things a little warmer, including flights, accommodation and private taxi resort transfers.
- 3 - 6 weeks in a choice of Benidorm's best loved 3* hotels on a full board basis, including flights, accommodation and Express Shuttle resort transfers from less than £200 per person per week.
- 22 night all inclusive Caribbean cruise for £2269, taking in Madeira, Mexico, Cuba and selected Caribbean islands, including direct flights to Lisbon departing from Gatwick, Birmingham, Manchester or Glasgow on 23.11.13 and returning form Barbados. This extraordinary deal includes all meals, a wide selection of alcoholic and soft drinks, onboard entertainment and a £100pp onboard spend.
It all just begs the question, "Why wouldn't you?"
NEW DEPARTURE AREAS ...
The 2013 addition of three new departure regions to the David Urquhart Travel tally brings the UK pick-up point total to over 200 and leaves very little of the UK with an excuse not to 'David Urquhart it.' A warm welcome to the 'newbies':
- Gloucestershire and Worcestershire: Cheltenham . Gloucester . Halesowen . Kidderminster . Stourbridge . Worcester
- Staffordshire: Cannock . Lichfield . Newcastle-under-Lyme . Nuneaton . Stafford . Tamworth . Stoke-on-Trent
- The Wirral & Chester: Wallasey . Birkenhead . Bebington . Bromborough . Ellesmere Port . Chester . Runcorn
UK TOURS HIGHLIGHTS ...
In a typically varied and packed programme of tours, catering for interests ranging from RHS flower shows to theme parks to mystic weekends to stately homes, new additions and highlights for 2013 / 14 include:
- Borders and Melrose- a grand tour of some of the most iconic parts of Scotland and the Borders Country: the resting place of the heart of Robert the Bruce. From the base camp of a newly refurbished 16th century coaching inn in Melrose, the tour takes in abbeys, picturesque border towns, including the dramatic, walled town of Berwick-upon-Teed, and leafs through the region's fascinating, bloody history.
- Four or five days, half board, with all travel, excursions and entertainment included from just £89 per person, from Scotland wide pick-up points.
- WWi tours - to mark the 2014 - 18 centenary commemorations, David Urquhart Travel are offering carefully programmed tours to Flanders Fields during 2014. Tours will take in Tyne Cot, the largest British Cemetery in the world, Hill 60, with its fascinating evidence of the "underground war" at Ypres and the newly re-opened In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres, which compellingly follows the story of a serving WW1 soldier, brought to life through interactive "Poppy bracelets". No visit would be complete without witnessing the moving sight of the Menin Gate, with its shockingly endless list of names of the fallen and its nightly Last Post tribute to them. A free day in Ostend or in Bruges is also included.
- WWII cruises, to mark the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings in in June 1944, David Urquhart Sky Travel are offering three unique 6 or 7 night cruises departing from Bristol Avonmouth (01.06.14), London Tilbury (02.06.14) and Harwich (01.06.14). Cruising off the landing sites of Normandy, each trip incorporates varying stop off combinations taken from Cherbourg, Guernsey, Hornfleur, Zeebrugge, Portsmouth, Le Havre and Dunkirk and include a memorial ceremony to remember the war dead. The London Tilbury departure cruise will also movingly join a commemorative fleet of craft sailing off the coast of Normandy on the 6th June - the anniversary of the D-Day landing.
- Prices start at £619 pp, with free taxi transfers between home and port (up to 20 miles) or a transport allowance of £45 for those making their own way to port.
- The Edinburgh Tattoo - taking the hassle out of seeing this annual military spectacle and with tickets still remaining, DUT guarantee seating with excellent views, drop off and collection at the gates of Edinburgh Castle and half board in carefully selected hotels, leaving nothing to detract from this most theatrical of precision military pageants.
- Selected dates throughout August available, dependent on departure area.
- 3 day, 2 night tours: £199, 2 days / 1 night: from £149 (each including half board, entrance to the Tattoo and all transport from selected departure points)
- Day trips (available from selected Scottish departure points): £66
- Island Hopping - a difficult tour for 'civilians' to orchestrate, David Urquhart Travel bring their indigenous Scottish knowledge and established local relationships to bear on a series of fabulous tours around the Scottish islands; taking in their rugged beauty, unique flora and fauna and historic highlights, including a 2,500 year old Orkney village and the Stonehenge of Scotland, at Callanish, Lewis.
- Choose from tours of Caithness & Orkney, Lewis & Barra, the Isle of Arran or the Isle of Skye, including travel throughout and half board, with UK-wide pick-up points. Prices range from £79 for 2 nights on Skye to £389 for 4 nights on Lewis & Barra.
- The Great British Seaside trip - David Urquhart Travel has been specialising in the iconic Great British Seaside for 30 years; with trusted relationships with personally checked hotel chains and independents and a honed programme of excursions and packages to the UK's best loved beaches, to show for it. Including Ilfracombe, Weymouth, Bournemouth, Torquay, Scarborough, Great Yarmouth and Blackpool.
- Typically, 5 day, 4 night breaks, including dinner, bed and breakfast, two excursions and travel throughout, start at £139 pp, giving every reason to 'like to be beside the seaside'. Pick up points vary according to destination.
EDITORS' NOTES ...
- David Urquhart organised his first day trip to the Scottish Highlands from the back bedroom of his high rise flat in East Kilbride in 1983, a flat that is still visible from the David Urquhart Travel offices today. 30 years later, that first coach has developed into nearly 200 pick-up points across the UK, which have ferried over 4 million people to more than 200 destinations across the globe and established the company as the largest independent coach tour operator in the UK. In 1994, David Urquhart Sky Travel joined the family, directing the same ethos of dealing directly with suppliers to provide excellent value for money and standards of service at fly and cruise holidays across the world.
- With a characteristic prioritising of their varied customers' needs, David Urquhart breaks can either be booked online at www.davidurquhart.com or, if a human voice and personal advice is preferred, by phone on 0844 848 6025; and if a human face is required and a relaxed chat through the mindboggling menu of tour and holiday options, a welcoming physical booking suite is also available at David Urquhart Travel, 103, Strathmore House, East Kilbride. G74 1LF.
- To vote for the British Travel Awards and simultaneously enter the great prize draw for a cache of travel goodies, including a DUT 5 day trip of choice for two, fill in the voting form at https://britishtravelawards.com/vote_reg.php before 30th September 2013. The BTA Award winners will be announced on Thursday 31st October 2013 at a Gala Dinner at Battersea Evolution in London. (www.britishtravelawards.com)
Press enquiries ... DUT web links ...
Lisa Jones, Dandelion PR W: www.davidurquhart.com
T: 07968 963456 F: www.facebook.com/davidurquharttravel
E: lisa@dandelionpr.co.uk Tw: @UrquhartTravel
Tw: @dandylisa
