It is not every day of the week you win a top travel award and get to meet celebrity illusionist David Copperfield.

But that dream came true for Carl Paiva, CEO of C Travel, as first he was treated to a viewing of Mr. Copperfield's private collection of props and museum of magic and illusionist memorabilia dating from 1528, as well as taking in his show, and then he received the Top Virtuoso Production - Latin American Division achievement award.

Mr. Paiva said he felt very privileged to be presented with the award at a gala event for the travel industry hosted by Virtuoso in Las Vegas.

"We are incredibly honoured to receive this award, especially as we were able to beat some of the major countries that form our region, including Mexico," he said.

"To think that C Travel would win for its sales for Virtuoso suppliers, hotels, destination management companies and Virtuoso Air is amazing.

"To me it shows all the employees here have grasped and understand about being a Virtuoso agent because it is the number one travel marketing company in the US and they are very selective about who becomes members by invitation or application.

"They have to see travel agents or companies as progressive and moving with the times in the industry and as having good marketing skills."

The Hamilton-based travel agent was up against tough competition from across Latin America and the Caribbean and even Mr. Paiva admitted he was surprised to pick up first place.

"I didn't know anything about it - if I am being honest, I expected Mexico to win," he said.

"They have lots of people and yet we only have 64,000."

C Travel was invited to become a member of Virtuoso five years ago and, with the use of 130 affiliated offices worldwide and dealing in the premium and luxury end of the travel market, they have not looked back since.

Not only did Mr. Paiva walk away with the top award, two days beforehand he was selected from 3,000 people to be invited as the private guest of Mr. Copperfield to see his collection of illusionist props and museum of magic memorabilia from the 14th century.

"The other surprise that I had was being invited to be a private guest of David Copperfield because of our outstanding sales for private parties on islands," he said.

"He personally came to meet me and a limousine picked me up to go to the museum.

"It was absolutely fascinating, but he has just bought an island in the Bahamas called Musha Cay and 11 other islands, so I was able to learn about that because he sees me as a person who could help sell the island through private functions because there are islands that we have actually rented out in various places in the world such as Africa, the Maldives and the British Virgin Islands.

"But it was just incredible to talk to this guy who is so amazing at what he does as an illusionist - he doesn't like it when people ask him to make them disappear or something like that, but he does have a very dry and witty sense of humour and I could certainly see a sensitive side to him."

C Travel will now represent Mr. Copperfield to help him market and sell his islands to business people and for parties, anniversaries and special occasions, or just anyone looking to get away from all the stresses and strains of modern life.

At $2,000 per person a day and upwards, holidaymakers will have access to exclusive private villas, fine dining and tours.

As if that was not enough, in addition Mr. Paiva was also appointed to Virtuoso's select advisory board made up of five agencies to work with their top executives on how to move the company forward.

For now though he is fully focused on the task at hand - that of establishing C Travel as a world leader in the travel industry.

"We are continually moving the company forward," he said.

"We continue to look at diversity and we offer online booking as well as representing various suppliers here such as Hertz and the InterContinental Hotel group and we have offices abroad in the Cayman Islands and a call centre in Europe, so our idea is basically to continue to offer this.

"We have future opportunities to extend in the Caribbean, which we plan to do, and we also represent Zoom, which has done well since it started."