The NTIA’s turned out to be a massive night for Planetdwellers, a proudly gay-owned and operated Australian travel agency, tour operator, and event organising company.
It was named Most Outstanding Leisure Travel Agency – Single Location at the event on Saturday night.
Speaking to Traveltalk, co-founder and managing Director Mario Paez said he was not expecting to win, and that the result means so much to the small team.
“It’s such a long, long journey. And, I don’t use that word lightly. From 2007 as a concept for an LGBT travel specialist to now be getting an award, at an industry-wide, Australia-wide award is absolutely mind-blowing.
“We weren’t even prepared that they were going to call our name, and when they did…, Oh my God. I think there were tears in the end, it was totally overwhelming,” Paez said.
“We started this out as an idea, an idea that we knew that there was something missing, something missing from the travel world in Australia.
“We both spoke about it ad nauseam, and we talked to many people in the industry, initially, for the first decade or so, we had a lot of people almost sort of say to us, that’s nice, kids, off you go do your thing.
“This is why something like this award tonight matters so much more, not just to us, but to every travel agent who has a dream out there to do something different,” Barry Warner, co-founder and General Manager of Planetdwellers said.
“Our industry is populated with these amazing, incredible people, absolute, true icons. And from our point of view, when you start with that dream and you just build a new belief, we have massive support, support from everywhere, but we always make sure that we put ourselves out there. And that’s the key to what we’ve done, we’ve put ourselves out there,” he said.
