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What the experts say

Adele Pennington is a mountaineering instructor,
expedition leader, operations manager and organiser
of expeditions around the world.

Which adventure activities are you What are the highlights of your work, and
involved in, and how did you get to where what motivates you?
you are now? The highlights of my career have been to
Climbing and mountaineering are my focus. organise and lead successful expeditions
Initially I pursued a career in biochemistry that run like clockwork. My motivation
and teaching. Both of which allowed me to comes from happy returning clients and a
acquire skills in analytical detail, education good variety and balance in my work.
and teaching. I went through the Summer
and Winter Mountain Leader scheme in my What do you think the future holds for
20’s, followed by the Single Pitch Award and adventure tourism?
Mountaineering Instructors Award and had Adventure tourism is a growing business
an active outdoor programme as a teacher. and within it there are a variety of roles.
I decided to leave teaching and start to lead These roles can be from practitioner leading
expeditions in order to be young enough to the adventure to administrator organising
fulfil my own mountaineering ambitions and the event. Professionalism is so important in
lead trips such as an Everest expedition. whatever aspect or role is taken on.
I also became operations manager for
Jagged Globe and more recently for my own What has been the most useful part of
company Adele Pennington Mountaineering. your education?
The ability to communicate verbally with
What skills do you think are most clients and take an interest in their needs.
valuable in your role? The ability to use an excel spreadsheet and
When planning expeditions, you must to persevere with administrative tasks that
do detailed research and pay attention to are not straight forward!
detail, from having a reasonable objective,
to costings, to answering client enquiries. Adele Pennington
Furthermore, it is essential to have safety
at the forefront of any expedition.

What do you personally hold as core
principles in your work in
adventure tourism?
My clients must have a safe expedition and
the trip should exceed their expectations.
Each participant’s needs must be met and
they must understand what the expedition
entails and are appropriately trained. Value
for money is important but not at the
expense of safety or client care.

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