Associates

Alessandra Alonso, MBA, MTS, MAC

Alessandra Alonso has over 15 years of experience working in the travel and tourism sector. Alessandra has two broad areas of expertise: marketing and communications and learning and development, which was especially the focus of her work over the last 6 years.

In late 2004 Alessandra co-founded Shine People and Places to provide marketing and professional development support to tourism organisations in the UK and Europe. In this context she co-designed and launched UK marketing campaigns for a number of Italian destinations and also the London regional development agency (LDA).

Shine quickly became known for its business support programmes for which it pioneered mentoring in the industry. Highly successful projects included:

• The Talent Programme in Merseyside, which was shortlisted for 3 awards ad acclaimed as the most successful tourism skills programme ever;
• Mentoring and Masterclasses in greater London which supported and trained over 300 industry mentees and mentors;
• Action for Tourism, through which Small business leaders were coached and supported in looking critically at their business against key topic areas and sharing experiences and knowledge with one another

Whilst at Shine Alessandra developed the Shine Awards for Women's Achievement in Travel and Tourism and Hospitality, the first award of its kind which run for 6 years and in 2010 was taken over by the sector skills council People 1st. Gender in tourism remains a keen interest of Alessandra and one which she has extensively researched and written about.

Alessandra started her professional experience in 1995 as tourism trainee at the European Commission in Brussels and then returned to London to take progressively more senior roles at organisations including the World Travel and Tourism Council, Air Harbour Technologies and KPMG, where over the period 200-2004 she build the UK travel tourism and hospitality practice and acted as spoke person, industry expert and business developer, 'right hand' to the head of the sector. Within a short span of time her influence extended outside the UK and she was able to harness KPMG's European expertise in the sector to run international projects. Successful projects she was involved with over the decade included:

• Strategic marketing and branding strategies for KPMG tourism division;
• Sales and marketing strategy for international 5 star hotel chains:
• Executive assistant to the Mayoral Commission investigating the need for an international conference centre for London;
• Building strategic partnerships with industry and public sector organisations, from Daimler Chrysler to the World Economic Forum;
• Community/stakeholders engagement and facilitation for public sector organisations;
• Strategic policy/lobbying papers to support international tourism campaigns.

Alessandra is an Italian national with fluent English, Spanish and good level German. Qualified to MBA level, she is a member of the Tourism Society, the Association of Women Travel Executives and the Association for Coaching. Alessandra gained her coach-mentoring certificate in 2003 and actively mentors industry professionals including on the industry's Women 1st Programme.

Alessandra is a prolific author and her articles have appeared in prestigious publications including Travel Trade Gazette; Travel Weekly, Tourism Society Journal, The Journal of Sustainable Development; Women in Business Magazine, Caterer and Hotel Keeper to mention a few. She has also addressed audiences worldwide at the invitation of industry bodies such as UNWTO, the Institute of Travel and Tourism and the International Hotel and Restaurant Association. In 2011 Alessandra was offered a visiting lectureship at the University of Hertfordshire Business School's Tourism Faculty.

Key areas of expertise

Strategy and Action Planning; Destinattion Marketing; Market Research; EU & Tourism; Green & Environmental Matters / Sustainability; Workshop Facilitation; Training for buinsess; Tourism Training Programmes; Mentoring; and Gender Issues in Tourism.