Tributes have been paid to a “talented” journalism student after she was killed along with her sister in a car crash in Morocco.

Tara Darlington, 23, pictured on the right, was on holiday with her sister Pippa, 21, when their rented car collided with a vehicle in Tarfaya in the early hours of Monday morning, killing the pair and seriously injuring their friend Joshua Stump.

Tara was about to start her final year of a media, journalism and sociology degree at Goldsmiths University in London and aimed to become a reporter.

She worked for online sports and fashion magazine Spashion.com and had been offered a role in New York after her course, while she had also set up her own social media consultancy for small businesses, called Savvy Social Media.

Tutor Marina Gask told EastLondonLines, a news website run by the university’s journalism students, that Tara was a talented student who was “great fun”.

She said: “Tara Darlington was easy to teach – so easy that it felt, at times, like she was already a journalist. Full of ideas and incredibly savvy, it was clear she was going to go far.

“She’d sometimes come to class exhausted after attending fashion events for Spashion.com, but she never gave less than her all in class.”

A family statement said: “We are as a family completely devastated at the loss of both our daughters. They were two of the most beautiful, dynamic, energetic and fun-loving girls who brought light and laughter to whoever met them.

“They made a difference to so many lives and they lit up every room on entering.”

Tara and her sister Pippa, a law student at Newcastle University, had saved up for months for the trip to Morocco, which they hoped would be the “adventure of a lifetime”.

A statement from staff at Spashion said “We are small and close-knit group and we will all greatly miss Tara and her bubbly, happy personality. It is a tragedy that is hard to come to terms with and all of us at Spashion would like to send our heart-felt condolences to the Darlington family.

“Tara was a rare and special person; we will never forget her.”