Sligo couple in the running to win dream six month working holiday
A Sligo couple are into the semi-final of a competition that sees the winner live and work in Cancun, Mexico for six months.
Koray McGowan and his girlfriend Zanet Stehlíková, made it through to the top 50 of the ‘CEO Search’ for Cancun.com out of over 6,000 entries.
“There’s been a couple of stages in the competition so far,” Koray told The Sligo Champion.
“We made a video of our travelling and all the places we have been. So we made it into the top 100 and we had a prompt for the next stage.
“That was wherever you are in the world, show what is unique about it.”
Their video about Sligo received a huge reaction online, and saw them through to the next round.
“So we’re in Sligo and we made a video about that. So we showed tradition with climbing Knocknarea and bringing a stone up, tradition of Irish food and traditional music,” he added.
“The storyline was over one day. So we had a couple of days of editing and final touches and we uploaded it and then waited to hear if we had made it or not.”
The couple had expected to hear late Thursday night but were left sweating when they received no news until 6am.
“I thought we didn’t make it. I clicked the link to see who made it through and kept scrolling and scrolling and I saw our thumbnail.”
As the only Irish entry to make it into the top 100 of the competition to find a Cancun Experience Officer, let alone top 50, they have received huge support from countrywide.
“The reaction has been crazy. All the Chambers of Commerce from around the country have been supporting us, tourism companies too have been in touch.
Wicklow Tourism were actually fascinated and were interested in us doing videos.”
Voting is open until January 13th, and you can vote on the website at ceo.cancun.com or check out the couple’s Instagram page on TeamWanderlustOfficial.
“We have to show that we can engage with an audience. We have high hopes for the next step, and if we get through to the final ten we are flown out to Cancun for a week.
The 20-year-old added: “She’s the photographer, and the pretty face. I’m more the technology side of things.”
The company pays €51,000 for six months of marketing projects, rather than paying big money for television advertisements.
The winner, or winners, of the competition will be tasked with creating engaging content, in a quick environment, which will be shown around the world.