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Winner thought he was just going to dinner in London




WHAT a big surprise!

Matt Nixon of Stratford-based 52 Degrees North Travel has won the Unsung Hero Award in The Globe Travel Awards one of the biggest award events in the industry.

What made it even more of a surprise for Matt was he thought he’d been invited to the awards evening in London last Thursday to meet fellow professionals and have a nice dinner – he didn’t even know he’d been nominated.

“I’m completed shocked and overwhelmed to be recognised at one of most prestigious awards events in the industry. When the likes of Jet2, Emirates, Inghams are going up and collecting awards, to even be in attendance is a privilege. To then think that you’ve been nominated and go on to win one is just mind blowing. It means a lot me, but more importantly the message that I want to get across to everyone about getting out there and have experiences that means the most. I often tell people in my talks that I’m more Homer Simpson than Bear Grylls and everyone can have an adventure of their own, they don’t have to be the same as mine,” said Matt who is a is a director and partner at 52 Degrees North Travel.

Video taken at Matt’s table during the award announcement shows him looking completely surprised but obviously thrilled with the news before he takes centre stage to receive his award. It turned out he was nominated by The Travel Network Group – the consortium 52 Degrees North Travel is part of.

“I’d not been to the event before. I knew it was black tie but wow what a night. With around 1,200 in attendance and the event starting off with Russell Watson, you know you’re in for a good night. It followed with the cast of ABBA, the very funny Rob Beckett and wrapped up with a performance Ella Eyre and a The RPJ band. People in the travel industry like to party and the event was no exception, the atmosphere was amazing,” said Matt.

Donna Nixon, director of 52 Degrees North Travel, added: “We set up the company five years ago based from our home in Stratford. It’s a true family business with the values to match. We pride ourselves on our customer service and relationships with suppliers, and it was very much those that got us through the tough years of Covid, when many others didn’t. We are continually thankful for all our customers and those that support our business. We now have many repeat customers and many of those customers have become friends. Our customer have gone on to have adventures they would never have dreamt of doing and we love helping them do that - and our 5 * reviews show we must be pretty good at it.

We’d entered the wellbeing award from The Travel Network Groups conference awards which we won in December but couldn’t collect the award as the flight to Munich was cancelled due to snow so we didn’t make the conference. They then put us forward to these awards without us knowing. The award entry explains about the talks that Matt had done and the journal/book that he has produced and charity challenges that ultimately led to the award win to help people with key mental health and wellbeing issues.”

Matt was one of those adults during

Covid that experienced a change in his mental health. Having been a very active and

adventure seeking person beforehand he found staying inside was taking its toll and that’s when he began the journal and giving talks online to people – from all over the world – to help them cope with lockdown.



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