31 May 2010 - Tour America launch Ireland's first dedicated travel mobile site!

In the first 5 months of 2010 usage of smart-phones in Ireland has doubled and more than 800,000 people have used their mobile phone to access the web. This is why innovative and award-winning Tour America have put an enormous amount of effort into getting it's mobile website live and available to it's growing database of customers. 

Tour America's mobile website http://m.touramerica.ie takes all of the great functionality the company has become well-known for, and puts it into a version optimised and configured to suit the mobile browser, regardless of whether you are using an i-phone, google, sony-erricsson, samsung, nokia or other brand of phone. The mobile site gives the browser the latest flight, hotel and package specials to all of the best destinations in the USA and is updated and re-priced at least every 20 minutes!

10 March 2010 - Strategy Prize Awarded to Tour America

As part of the Deloitte Best Managed Companies Award Programme Tour America, the holiday specialists on North America and worldwide, was singled out from among the winners to receive a special accolade for exceptional performance in business strategy.

IMI Chief Executive, Dr Tom McCarthy presented a place on the Masters of Business programme to Mary McKenna, Managing Director of Tour America in Dublin on March 5th.

This special award is in recognition of the high standard of management practice that the Deloitte Best Managed Companies Awards has highlighted within Tour America and their exceptional performance in business strategy.

All 20 Deloitte Best Managed Companies for 2010 along with the 22 re-qualified companies from the 2009 programme also received IMI Membership for 2010.

08 March 2010 - Best Managed Company 2010!!

Tour America won the Best Managed Company award for 2010 on Friday night.  The Deloitte’s Best Managed Companies award programme, in association with Bank Of Ireland Scotland, has been developed to recognize Irish companies on the Island of Ireland, operating at the highest level of business performance. The programme seeks to identify best-managed companies through an evaluation process that extends far beyond financial results.  The Deloitte’s Best Managed designation is a symbol of Irish Corporate success, companies focused on their core vision, creating stake holder value, excelling in all area’s of the business and celebrating the contribution of the entire organization.

l-r Pat Cullen - Managing Partner, Deloitte, the Taoiseach Brian Cowen, Mary McKenna - Managing Director of Tour America and David Latto - Head of Corporate Banking, Bank of Scotland (Ireland)

IRISH TRAVEL OPERATOR WINS BEST MANAGED COMPANY 2010

Tour America were also awarded the over-all award for their outstanding proposal by the Irish Management Institute, which includes an MBA Masters programme (worth €10,000) for one of their management team.

Tour America has always planned for the future. They understand that the future of the market is selling directly to the consumer, so they focus on this at all times.  Their strategy has always been to innovate and think outside the box, and differentiate themselves from how the traditional travel businesses in Ireland operate. They employ from outside the industry and take expert experience from other sectors into the company.  Tour America describes themselves as a marketing company that takes information and uses this knowledge fast.

In 15 years of operation this Irish owned company has been profitable, and has continued to re-invest this back into the company, primarily in people and technology.  They have a lean mentality, watching overheads at all times and ensuring productivity from all the team. The team knows how they are doing and what they need to achieve.

The last 18 months has been particularly challenging in the travel industry with Tour Operators showing drops in revenue of 30%-70% and travel agents closing in large numbers. Tour America stand alone in what they achieved this year with a small growth in revenue and a huge increase of 56% in passenger numbers.  Thousand more people know Tour America this year than did last year and many have booked with them for the first time. Tour America is the first company to produce their own You Tube Video, which offers all their specials on a weekly basis.

05 February 2010 -  Yet another award!!

Pictured above is Mary McKenna (Tour America's Managing Director) receiving an exclusive award to the Irish market, for outstanding contribution in selling the destination of California!

04 February 2010 -  Daily txts from Claudia!!

Claudia, our Product Manager, is on the maiden voyage of Costa's brand new Cruise Liner, and is sending us a txt each day:

4th Feb: "Sitting on my balcony this morning, relaxing after being entertained by Kid Kreole (blast from the past!) until the wee hours of the morning, watching the Italian coastline slip by as we float along towards our Port of Call for today - Naples!! Looking forward to a lovely City Tour of Naples this afternoon"

3rd Feb: "On the fantastic new Costa ship 'The Deliziosa'! So much to do from fulfilling my dream of being an F1 driver on the F1 simulator, watching a movie in 4D, taking in a show in the relaxing theater and chilling on a sun-lounger sipping cocktails!! Wonder...ful staff, great entertainment, they will have a tough time getting me out of here when the cruise is over!!"

04 February 2010 - Tour America wins again!!

Tour America were voted the "Best Tour Operator" at the 2010 Herald.ie Travel Awards! We were among Mark Evans' top 20 in the Irish Travel scene

03 February 2010 - Back to school!!

15 members of the Tour America team are doing a night-course in Digital Marketing! Here, we will learn how to communicate better with our customers through our website as well as our Facebook, Twitter & YouTube channels! The course runs from January until the end of March.

• Tour America scooped the award for Best Worldwide Tour Operator 2009 at the recent Irish Consumer Awards held in the RDS , Dublin in 2009!
  
• Tour America were also nominated as:

              - Best High Street Travel Agent

              - Best Online Travel Agent

              - Best Family Travel Product

• Cruise Holidays were also nominated for Best Cruise Company
  

Tour America Extends It's Opening Hours

Tour America is bucking the trend in the travel sector and is dealing with a significant increase in bookings. To cope with this, the Tour America Team are working earlier in the morning and later in the evening to cope with the requests.