Originally born and raised in Romania, Irina Tuluca’s passion for travel and serving others hits close to home. Her Romanian roots helped shape her initial passion for travel. Irina feels fortunate to have a family that loved and encouraged travel, allowing her to go on several cross-country road trips growing up.
Although there were probably various other incentive trips offered in the past, we asked Dan Moore, President of Southwestern Advantage, to share what he remembered about Southwestern Advantage’s early trips after he begin selling books in 1974. “To the best of my knowledge, the first incentive trip was in 1974, and it was a ski trip to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, between Christmas and New Year’s. The whole company’s winners gathered together, about 600 dealers, on the slopes. We returned to the same location for two more years in a row. In 1977, the idea of a company-wide trip was replaced by Sales Director Group trips, including one to Mazatlan, Mexico.”
Since then, other companies within the family have followed suit, exploring incredible destinations such as Cuba, Iceland, the Maldives, Ireland, and Mexico. With the expert knowledge gained from planning our internal incentive trips, Southwestern Travel Group launched publically in 2016 provide full-service meeting and incentive trip travel along with inspired leisure travel.