Althams Travel is celebrating the opening of its new Harrogate shop this weekend with prizes on offer and an appearance by Emmerdale actor Mark Charnock.

The soap star, who plays Marlon Dingle, previously opened the travel agency chain’s Ilkley store in 2018 and lives locally in Harrogate. He will now be on hand to officially mark the opening of the shop this Saturday (6 January).

The new branch, which is located at the Victoria Shopping Centre in central Harrogate, opened to customers last Wednesday (27 December) ready for Peaks.

Althams Travel Regional Manager Claire Hargreaves said: “The store has been really well received by locals as there isn’t much in the way of an independent agency that sells everything in the area. We are embracing the shopping centre location too – we are on the outside of it by a busy shopping street, so it’s ideal.”

Claire explained she is currently recruiting travel advisors for the branch and staff from other stores have been helping with the opening.

She added: “We are already seeing bookings come in – we work with Jet2holidays a fair bit, so they have been popular. People have also seen we have so many different types of holidays on offer and that we work with a lot of specialist operators, so there’s a nice mix of enquiries.”

The grand opening event will also include a ‘Guess the Suitcase Weight’ game with a chance to win a £150 Althams Travel voucher, plus for every Jet2holidays booking made, customers will be entered into a draw to win £1,000 Jet2holidays voucher.