We got carried away with providing you informative content, that we have forgotten to introduce the faces behind Bluebird. Hi, we are Tan and Chris, the Co-Founders of Bluebird and it’s so great to meet you.

If you haven’t already read about why we named our passion project Bluebird, head on back to the blog page to find out our story. It holds a lot of meaning to both of us.

Without further ado here is a little about me and how I landed myself in the always colourful industry of travel.

Tan’s Story

My name is Tanya, however, I prefer to be called Tan. I am not a formal person by any stretch of the imagination, so a nickname suits me best.

I grew up in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne with my older brother Trav. Our mother passed away when I was 6 and my brother 9 which evidently changed the course of our future as a family. We eventually relocated to sunny Brisbane where I finished my schooling. Dad was always big about education and the importance of attending university. He asked me what I wanted to do for a career and I said ‘ I want to work in travel’. I really had no idea when it came to what job exactly.

I have always had a fascination with airports. There are always people coming and going, with everyone having their own stories to tell. I always wondered which destination they were heading to. The hustle and bustle of the terminals were exciting to me. I don’t think dad thought travel was the best idea given his background was banking and finance. Watching the course of my career though, he couldn’t be prouder.

I was never a high achiever at school, just an average student really. Attending school was not my favourite part of growing up. My marks were not high enough for me to get straight into University, so I went to TAFE and completed a Diploma. To my surprise, I thoroughly enjoyed the course and even received the student award on graduation. I then finally enrolled in University and completed a Bachelor of Business Management, majoring in Travel and Events management.

Once I graduated, I had the fun of trying to get my foot in the door to start my career in travel. I was holidaying in Melbourne visiting family when I received a call for an interview. The interview also happened to be in Melbourne (thank you universe!). Long story short, I was offered the role to commence work in a call centre for the then start-up airline – Jetstar. I was so excited and had to cut my holiday short to travel home, pack my things and return to Melbourne to commence my career in travel.

Whilst living in Melbourne I experienced working in a variety of roles. After working in the call centre, I moved across to the airport where a standard working week did not exist. I loved every minute until I made a regrettable internal move to airline customer relations (never ever again). I must admit I did learn a great deal when it comes to customer service and managing escalated complaints. Fed up with negativity I tried my hand at online travel agent life. The company was quite small at the time so there was not a lot of room to progress in the company. When I felt I had learned all I could, I moved into corporate travel as a travel consultant. In this role, I was booking itineraries for some of Australia’s largest companies. Then came the world of hotel corporate sales.

Deciding to move back to Brisbane was a breath of fresh air. I continued on in hotel corporate sales for some time and that is where I met my husband Chris. I actually interviewed him for his role, but don’t worry it was all above board. Around the 6 year mark, I took a break from hotels and moved over to Account Management within a Travel Management Company. I did enjoy the role however, I found myself back in hotels again. This time it was for a start-up business which brings me to the current day.

I am now about to embark on a new adventure as a Marketing Manager in a hotel management services company, which will again expand my knowledge of the industry in different ways.

All the experiences I have had and shared with Chris have led us to Bluebird – The Travel Playbook. We have experience travelling ourselves, but also understand the ins and out of the industry from our work experience. Knowledge is power and we want to share that with you.

Stay tuned for part 2, where you’ll meet Chris.