Flight Centre has announced that Mike Corey from New Maryland, NB and Sam Macmillan from Vancouver, BC are the grand prize winners of the company’s inaugural “Best Travel Job Ever” contest. The grand prize winners have each won a trip to Australia courtesy of Intrepid Travel and Air Canada as well as clothing from Roots Canada, camera gear from Henry’s Photo and $2,000 cash.
Flight Centre ran the contest in search of people that are passionate about travel and who wanted to spend the summer video blogging their experience from an exotic destination. Over 100 video entries were submitted and over 12,000 people voted on the Top 25. Six semi-finalists were chosen by a celebrity judge panel which included Josie Dye (102.1 The Edge & CosmoTV), Suzanne Christie (Open Jaw & Takeoffeh.com) and Scott Stratten (un-marketing.com). The celebrity judges chose the Grand Prize winners and the fan favourite was voted on by the public.
When asked what he got out of the experience, co-winner Sam Macmillan responded, "I got a renewed sense of adventure and excitement for video editing, travelling and experiencing new things. There were so many moments throughout the trip that were funny, sad, scary, exciting and everything in between." Mike Corey agreed also citing the friendly competition component, "Another great thing about the experience so far is that there has been a lot of love and support between entrants that has gone on behind the scenes…The Best Travel Job Ever competition has such a great community around it!"
In fact, 3 participants were so enticed by the idea of working for Flight Centre through the contest that they applied for positions of which 2 have been hired as International Travel Consultants and one is waiting for a position to open up in their area.
“For our inaugural year, we were absolutely thrilled by the number of entries, votes, page views and media support.” said Gregg Tilston, Flight Centre’s Social Media Manager. “We couldn't have asked for anything more the first time around and we’re looking forward to making some improvements to make it even better next year.”
