Black Tomato has been named Best Online Tour Operator 2011 at British Travel Awards 2011. The announcement was made on 2 November at a glamorous Gala Awards Dinner held at Battersea Evolution in London, attended by more than a thousand travel industry people.

Black Tomato is a high end online tailor-made travel company with a leisure arm that specializes in putting together cutting-edge travel experiences around the world. The company also has a highly successful corporate arm, creating unique events, incentive programmes and promotional prizes for some of the world's biggest brands and blue chips.

Black Tomato was set up by founders Tom Marchant, James Merrett and Matt Smith as a result of their huge passion for discovering new travel experiences, recognising a gap in the market for a new kind of travel company.

Black Tomato now employs over 60 staff in London and New York and this year, launched two new brands; Beach Tomato, a fashion and lifestyle website and Epic Tomato, offering expedition-led extreme travel experiences to the far corners of the world.

Tom Marchant, co-founder, Black Tomato said, "We are incredibly proud to be named best online tour operator, particularly given the strong competition we had in the category. It's what we've been striving for from the very start of Black Tomato and it's a credit to the whole team for all the hard work and passion over the last six years."

British Travel Awards' chief executive Lorraine Barnes Burton said: "The British Travel Awards is the largest awards programme in the UK, created to reward travel companies, with the winning accolade being the benchmark for excellence when it comes to finding out who really is the best in the business of travel for the UK consumer.  This year the competition was fierce and Black Tomato is to be congratulated on their achievement."

Companies were nominated by travel industry professionals before being voted for by the British public, including readers of News International publications, listeners of LBC and readers of the British Travel Awards magazine Check-In. In 2011 over 700,000 votes were cast with the results scrutinized and audited by Deloitte LLP.