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.
2018 Incentive Trips
Southwestern Advantage – Havana, Cuba
Southwestern Consulting – Reykjavik, Iceland
ThinkingAhead – Playa del Carmen, Mexico
Southwestern Advantage – Cancun, Mexico
Southwestern Real Estate – San Jose Del Cabo, Mexico
Southwestern Advantage – The Maldives
2019 Incentive Trips
Southwestern Advantage – Montego Bay, Jamaica
Thinking Ahead – Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
Southwestern Consulting – Dublin, Ireland
Southwestern Investment Group – Jackson Hole, Wyoming
Watch the video below to see some of the highlights from the most recent trips.
Not only are the incentive trips designed to reward hard workers, but many of our companies also use this opportunity to give back to the local communities they visit.
(Southwestern Advantage – Havana, Cuba – 2018)
“We not only leave our footprints in the sand, but we also leave an imprint on the community.” – Trey Campbell
Some of the service projects Southwestern Advantage has been a part of include a build out of school classrooms at the Centro de Educativo Shalom in Dominican Republic, a shopping spree for classroom materials to benefit the Center for Deaf and Mute in Puerto Vallarta, and numerous other projects that have mainly serviced daycares, orphanages, and juvenile integration centers in cities across Mexico.
These service projects were optional before 2011, but since then, they’ve been adopted as a corporate-wide initiative, “Share The Advantage,” which was inspired by Henry Bedford. Henry thought that it would be great to live our values even while having fun on these trips. Today, the key players in helping to set up the service projects are Trey Campbell and Tabitha Taylor, who research and reach out to the local organizations that are outside of the hotel zone and can benefit from our long-term relationship in servicing larger projects.
“We’ve learned that it’s the givers who are the winners.” – Henry Bedford
All in all, here at Southwestern Family of Companies, we believe in rewarding and recognizing those around us who are goal achievers and who, ultimately, are helping our vision of positively impacting the world with our business interactions as much as our incentive trip vacations. It’s not just about having fun, although we do like to have fun, but it’s also about finding opportunities to serve others and create a lasting legacy.
