Wilkes-Barre, PA

Start your engines for an exciting night of fun. Sundance Vacations Speedway is holding an Employee Day on Saturday, April 18.

Employees - FREE ADMISSION
Guests: Adult - $10
Children 10 & Under – Free

The employee sign in will take place from 4:30-6pm. The grandstands will open at 5pm. Racing will follow. Please make sure you sign up with your manager. We hope to see you there!

Do you have a favorite local driver that you’re excited to see?

A few Sundance Vacations employees including Founder Tina Dowd have been working on core values and designing a corporate culture that will be beneficial to the company. While at a conference in Las Vegas, Tina attended a seminar given by CEO Tony Hsieh from Zappos. Mr. Hsieh explained 10 solid core values that act as a formalized definition of their company culture. Zappos core values weren’t formed by a few people from senior management that sat around in a room at a company offsite. Instead, they invited every employee at Zappos to participate in the process. That’s what we hope to accomplish at Sundance Vacations. What matters to you? What values do you live by daily?

The final list Zappos collectively came up with include:
1) Deliver WOW Through Service
2) Embrace and Drive Change
3) Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4) Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5) Pursue Growth and Learning
6) Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7) Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
Do More With Less
9) Be Passionate and Determined
10) Be Humble

The cool thing about the Zappos core values is that they can be used as personal values as well. The Zappos CEO explained that his core values work because, his employees live by them. We want you to come up with a set of core values, or even just one. If you live your life by a certain value and you think it would benefit the company, we want to hear from you! According to Robert Bundy, “If there are no common values, there can be no image of the future.” Please be an image of the future for Sundance Vacations!

What core values are important to you?

Sundance Vacations experienced a huge loss on Thursday March 5th. A long term employee Helen Koval passed away from an illness. Helen was employed as the Assistant General Manager of Sundance Vacations. After running the Wilkes-Barre dayshift for many years she soon took over the Inbound and Confirmations Department. Helen touched the lives of many employees and everyone was deeply saddened by the news. “You don’t meet someone like Helen Koval every day. She was so much more than a coworker, she was a best friend. We shared secrets, dreams, and goals. I’m very fortunate to have worked with her for so many years. I’ll miss her more than words will allow me to express,” said Christina Allen.

There will be a memorial service in Helen’s honor on Tuesday, March 10th at 2:30. The service will be held at the corporate office, and all employees are invited to attend. If you have any memories or stories of Helen that you would like to share, please do.

Sundance Vacations sends their deepest condolences to the Koval family during this difficult time. “As a GM, Helen touched nearly every employee. She had incredible natural talent for managing people which made her extremely well loved at every level. We are distraught and saddened by the loss of this extraordinary woman. We ask for our customers understanding as we regain our composure and say goodbye during the memorial service set for Tuesday,” said Sundance Vacations Founders John and Tina Dowd.

Helen Koval and Christina Allen pictured at a Sundance Vacations Cristmas Party.

A few employees from Sundance Vacations including: VP of Marketing Joe Molitoris, Wilkes-Barre Sales Director Jerry Sisk, Administrative Assistants Natalie Cassarella, and Pam Fantaskey, and Communications Director Amanda Miller recently attended a Lincoln Day Dinner to support local PA candidates running for office. The dinner was held at the East Penn Sportsman Club, in Lehighton, PA. The featured speakers were Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett, and State Senate Candidate, Representative David Argall. Sundance Vacations employees were proud to attend the meet and greet and catch up on state and local politics. “It is always an honor to be in the company of the PA Attorney General and other candidates who are passionate about doing their very best to improve local issues that affect us every day,” explained Administrative Asst. Natalie Cassarella.

(L-R) PA State Representative David Argall, VP of Marketing Joe Molitoris, Communications Director Amanda Miller, and PA Attorney General Tom Corbett

Congratulations team, we did it!! For the second year in a row, Sundance Vacations was named as one of the Best Places to Work in PA. Hundreds of employees anonymously participated in the survey process. Participation levels were so significant, that Sundance Vacations proves to be one of the best places to work, because of the employees.

Companies from across the state entered the two-part process to determine the 100 Best Places to Work in PA. The first part consisted of evaluating each nominated company’s workplace policies, practices, philosophies, systems and demographics. The second part consisted of an employee survey to measure the employee experience. Nearly 45,000 Pennsylvania employees filled out the survey. The combined scores determine the top companies and the final ranking. Best Companies Group managed the overall registration and survey process.

This statewide survey and awards program was designed to identify, recognize and honor the best places of employment in Pennsylvania, benefiting the state’s economy, its workforce and businesses. Last year Sundance Vacations was named #8 Best Place to Work in PA. However, the company was #1 Best Place to Work locally.

Sundance Vacations will be recognized and honored at the Best Places to Work in PA evening awards ceremony on Tuesday, December 2, 2008, at the Hershey Lodge & Convention Center. The final rankings will be revealed at the ceremony. Stay tuned!

The Sundance Vacations customer service division is trained and ready to answer a wide variety of client questions about our product. We recently came across a more unique type of question from one of our customers.  The blogger from New Jersey questioned how Sundance Vacations can stay in business by offering such economical vacations.  He was happy with the price but expressed concern that if the company continued to offer this pricing structure we would become insolvent.  The exact words were “bankrupt.”

Not to worry.  We have a healthy profit margin.  Although our gross revenue and profit continue to grow each year we also control our costs in many ways. The really simple explanation that many customers will understand is that we own (and therefore control the price of) a lot of our own vacation inventory in many of the most popular vacation areas.  Over the past 17 years we have often taken profits and re-invested in the future of the company by purchasing resort real estate when it was smart to do so.   The current economic downturn is actually a positive event for Sundance Vacations who is ready to scoop up deals as prices fall on real estate nationwide.

We also protect customers through our fee structure.  How does a fee structure protect customers?

Well, because we don’t incur all of the vacation expenses upfront, you don’t pay all of the expenses upfront.  See one of our very first blog posts on this subject:  http://sundancevacations.typepad.com/sundance_vacations_corpor/2006/10/fees_facts.html

The fee structure guarantees that the company will always have a revenue stream to fulfill vacations.  Do you have a particular question about Sundance Vacations that you want answered?  Send it to pr@vacmail.com or simply reply with a comment to this post.

The Association of TeleServices International recently honored Sundance Vacations with the Call Center Award of Distinction. Sundance Vacations was recognized at ATSI’s 2008 annual conference held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in St. Louis, MO.

The award of excellence is a ‘mystery shopper’ program that provides individual testing for quality assurance in customer service levels. After six months of testing, a panel of judges scored call-handling skills for “enhanced service” applications focusing attention on customer relation management (CRM), courtesy, etiquette, and the use of proper call techniques, as well as response time and accuracy, the cornerstones of the Call Management Industry.

“We congratulate Sundance Vacations for their achievements,” said ATSI President Allan Fromm. This is the second year Sundance has received this honorable award. Be sure to congratulate the marketing team on their hard work!

Among the awards Sundance Vacations have received, what awards means the most to you or to your office?

Sundance Vacations is slowly nestling into their new home, located at 264 Highland Park Blvd, Wilkes-Barre PA 18702. The building is HUGE, and was a bit overwhelming the first day. It was similar to the first day of school, after getting lost a few times, I finally found my way around. I was glad I knew everyone; otherwise it would have been a nightmare. After all of the unpacking, we faced a few minor problems. Sundance Vacations had a glitch in their “network” system due to a problem with the company’s server. We’re always being told, “save everything you do to the network, and not to “my” documents.” Well, just about everything that I have ever worked on was saved to the network. As most people, I freaked out, which was an expected and normal response to the problem. However, I have a tendency to overreact and I’m almost positive, I did that day. After asking IT a few questions, I was told the problem should be corrected, and anything saved to the network in the past week might not be recovered. WHEW! That was the best news, I’d heard in a long time.

I want to thank the whole IT Team and those who helped with the set up of computers and repairing the network, Tom Berger, Jenny Yuhas, David Wehr, Courtney Long, Chris Woodside, and Sundance Vacations owner, Tina Dowd. Without these people, we wouldn’t be operating, and I certainly wouldn’t be writing this blog! Please salute IT and their helpers as they completed an almost impossible mission!

Tell us about your first day at the new office? What were your malfunctions?

-Amanda Miller