Today marks a MAJOR milestone for Spectacular Events & Spectacular World Travel… today we celebrate our 20th birthday! Woo hoo!!!
In 1998, I held the piece of paper in my hand that was my company certificate… I was aged 25 years old, ready to take on the world and initially we started out with me contracting to two or three companies to run their conference events. In less than two years, I had a travel centre in North Sydney which ran side by side to the conference work I was doing and following the birth of my first son, my husband and I relocated back to the Sunshine Coast to be close to my family and for me to still be able to run my business.
National World Travel Currimundi opened on 6th June 2000 at the Currimundi Marketplace (it’s now actually a Flight Centre!) and we started our journey, which evolved into two travel centres (with the addition of Travelworld Mooloolaba), a call centre in Cotton Tree that ran the CBA True Awards Flight Redemption program and serviced the travel for the PGA of Australia & Rock Eisteddfod Challenge. We also created an amazing team of people and we had a fantastic culture before that was even a buzz word!
National World Travel Currimundi opened on 6th June 2000 at the Currimundi Marketplace (it’s now actually a Flight Centre!) and we started our journey, which evolved into two travel centres (with the addition of Travelworld Mooloolaba), a call centre in Cotton Tree that ran the CBA True Awards Flight Redemption program and serviced the travel for the PGA of Australia & Rock Eisteddfod Challenge. We also created an amazing team of people and we had a fantastic culture before that was even a buzz word!
Major highlights were being inducted into the Sunshine Coast Business Awards ‘Hall of Fame’ in 2005 (after winning 3 business awards), and also being recognised as the Sunshine Coast Business Women’s Network Sunshine Coast Outstanding Business Woman of the Year in 2004 & a two-time Telstra Business Women’s Award Finalist.
We have constantly evolved and moved with the times, re-structuring a couple of times to meet market and client needs and to ensure we are at the forefront of everything we do.
We no longer have a retail travel centre (our last one was closed 6 years ago at the end of this month), but our company continues to thrive, grow and progress. For some time we have not been as ‘visual’ as we were in the early 2000’s, as most of our work is conducted for corporate businesses and franchise groups, so I guess ‘behind the scenes’ but we still work tirelessly in the local community, network and offer support and sponsorship when we are in a position to do so.o.
SHINE Business Women is our latest venture and OMG – this for me is our most exciting project to date and I cannot wait to roll out six conferences in the next 12 months and the membership program that will sit behind this business division. The support so far has been truly amazing and we are SO excited about this way forward.
BUT primarily we are still a travel, conference & event management company who specialises in delivering conferences and group travel, and this will NEVER change. It is our core business, our passion and what we love best… we’ve now just put our own spin on it with SHINE Business Women, to complement what we do for our clients.
Today is a day to CELEBRATE! Not many businesses survive the 5 or 10 year mark, so we are extremely proud to make it to 20 years… and for us, we still feel it’s only the beginning!
A massive THANK YOU to all the clients and people we work with, many of you have been with us for most of the 20 years and that’s also something to ‘shout out’ about! A massive THANK YOU to all staff, present and past, for sharing our dream and purpose, we would not be where we are today without you!
Cheers to 20 years and looking forward to the next 20!