Ocean Holidays Enters Travel Hall Of Fame

Ocean Holidays co-founder, Harry Hastings was crowned 2016 Young Entrepreneur of the Year at the Travel and Hospitality Hall Of Fame. The company has firmly secured its place amongst leading brands, innovative thinkers and hard grafters in the travel industry with its first award of 2016.

The Young Entrepreneur of the Year title celebrates the enviable success achieved by the Ocean Holidays umbrella, under which Ocean Florida, Ocean California, Winged Boots and Ocean Beds trade.

It began in 2004 with Ocean Florida, a tour operator specialising in villa holidays to the Sunshine State. Since then, the five directors – George and Harry Hastings, David and Daniel Ox and Chris Ford have focused on USA and luxury travel and have grown Ocean Holidays to include a California specialist (Ocean California), a luxury tour operator (Winged Boots) and a receptive tour operator (Ocean Beds).

Hastings said: We saw an opportunity to focus on high-volume holidays to Florida and grabbed it. Since then we’ve grown our expertise and built an incredible team dedicated to bespoke USA and luxury itineraries

Ocean Holidays has a growth goal of 300% and a passenger total of 100,000 per year by 2020. Winning this award is a big step in building the company’s recognition and increasing its customer base across all four brands.

Hastings now sits in the Hall Of Fame amid legends of Florida travel, Sir Richard Branson and the late Sir Freddie Laker. Previous winners of the Young Entrepreneur Award also include Chris Loughlin of Travelzoo, Cheapflights’ Hugo Burge, Attraction Tickets Direct’s Oliver Brendon and Renaldo Scheepers, of A2B Travel Extras.