Tour Leader Awards 2011

The winner of the 2011 Explore Tour Leader Awards was Nepalese leader Sudarshan KC. The runners up were Jorge Mario Rodriguez, Tran Van Hoan and Louise Van Zwanenberg, with Wael Wanas receiving the prestigious Shirley Meacock Spirit of Explore Award.

Tour Leader of the Year 2011: Sudarshan KC

Sudarshan KC was chosen by a panel of judges after he was shortlisted following nominations received by Explore customers. When choosing him as their winner the judges praised the quality of the customer feedback that he received, the rare ability he has to create a real sense of family in his groups, as well as his ability to make tough decisions.

Sudarshan received a £1,000 prize, half of which he will donate to charity. He has chosen a school just outside Kathmandu to benefit from the donation.

Sudarshan says:

It is very hard to choose the place to help, but after going through couple of places, I think i will give the money to one of the schools  just outside Kathmandu. It is called Image Academy in Manamaiju Village Development Commitee. I wanted to help the poor children of this school by providing stationary and may be we will change the black board of some of the classes.

Explore received a staggering 848 nominations for 250 different tour leaders for the Tour Leader of the Year Award. Once both sets of nominations had been shortlisted, it was up to a panel of judges to choose the two winners. The judging panel met on 12th July and was made up of Ashley Toft, Managing Director and Carolina Gryngarten, Head of Operations at Explore; Amar Grover, travel journalist; Polly Davies, travel agent from Marco Polo; Sylvia Curry, loyal Explore customer, and Pam Meacock, Shirley Meacock’s daughter and loyal Explore customer.

The standard was incredibly high, and members of the judging panel commented how hard it was to decide the winner and three runners up, who were Jorge Mario Rodriguez, Tran Van Hoan and Louise Van Zwanenberg. Each receive a prize of £500, half of which will go to a charity of their choice.

Jorge Mario Rodriguez: Guatemala

What impressed the panel was the consistently amazing feedback Jorge gets from customers, with many stating that he is the best leader they've ever had. Jorge has taken to the role of tour leader fantastically well and the Explore Operations Managers have been impressed with his understanding of the Explore ethos and the way he spent time really getting to understand all the details of the role. Jorge tells us about his charity:

 Jorge says:

In regards to the organization which I would like to benefit, it is a very small institution called AMBI.  Amor y bienestar, by its acronym in Spanish, “love and wellbeing”. It is a small nursery home where parents can leave their children as they go to work. For many people of a low socio-economical level, especially in the poorest areas of the city, taking care of their children can be a problem when they need to go to work.  There are cases of single mothers that just have to leave their kids inside their homes (that most of the times are just a room) with the door locked meanwhile they go to work. 

Of course they can´t afford not to go to work and what concerns the parents the most is that if the kids are left alone and able to go out into the streets they could become prey for gangs who will recruit them and insert them into a life of crime.  And because of this, the best choice is to leave them children behind locked doors with all the adyacent dangers that this represents for the kids in the event of an accident or any other kind of calamity. This is why I believe this small nursery institutions are of crucial help for the unprivileged. In the particular case of choosing AMBI as a beneficiary, the fact is that I do personally know some of the people who work there.

Tran Van Hoan: Vietnam

The judging panel noted the fact that Tran Van Hoan goes to such great lengths to help customers when things don’t go to plan or when they lose personal possessions. He also come across as a wonderful ambassador, not only for Vietnam, but also for Explore. The panel was also impressed with the fact that he has led tours in Cambodia, and seems to have the respect of the local people there, and gets great feedback from customers, even though it is not his home country. Tran tells us about his chosen charity:

Tran says:

I chose the Go Vap Center for Nursing Children Support. I choose this organization because they have a clear objective and are willing to receive and support children without any conditions. They are not really international or national (I mean international which is receiving many supports from other International Organizations around the world). However, they have many policies and methods of training but their budget is very limited, that’s why I support them.

Louise Van Zwanenberg: UK

What really made an impression on the judges was the fact that Louise gets consistently great feedback from customers, despite running some of our most (operationally) challenging tours. Louise describes the charity she chose to donate half her winnings to:

Louise says:

I would like the donation to go to the old peoples home here in Juigalpa. The people of Nicaragua and Juigalpa have made me feel so welcome that I would like to give something to the local community where I live. They have 40 residents and they share 4 to a room. They are old people who would living on the street if they were not in the home as they have no family. The Sandinistas provide rice, beans, oil and sugar but the association relies on donations to buy meat and vegetables. A nurse visits 3 times a week and they a few staff who are resident. the staff receive no wages but are paid with rice, beans and oil.The home is outside of town about a 15 minute bike ride from where I live and it is an old cattle finca set in 25 acres of land where they have their own cows so the residents always have milk and cuajada. The money will go to rewire the building and to buy meat for the residents.

This is the second year we have awarded the Shirley Meacock Spirit of Explore Award to a Tour Leader who has received constantly great feedback over many years working for Explore. They achieve this by consistently going above and beyond the call of duty, impressing customers with their passion for their job, and embracing the spirit and ethos of Explore.

The Shirley Meacock Spirit of Explore Award

This is the second year we will be awarding the Shirley Meacock Spirit of Explore Award to a Tour Leader who has received constantly great feedback over many years working for Explore. They achieve this by consistently going above and beyond the call of duty, impressing customers with their passion for their job, and embracing the spirit and ethos of Explore.

Shirley Meacock was our most travelled customer when she sadly passed away in 2009. She first travelled with Explore when she was 63 and, after 57 adventures in 22 years, including the Inca Trail when she was 64 and Kilimanjaro when she was 73, it is clear Shirley truly embodies the pioneering spirit of Explore. This is why, in 2010 we decided to honour her memory by setting up an award in her name.

Winner: Wael Wanas from Egypt

What impressed the judges about Wael was the fact that as well as leading tours himself, he is responsible for training so many of our excellent leaders in Egypt. It was also noted how committed he was to the Explore customers that were in Egypt during turbulent times in January/February this year; especially when he was away from his own family. It was felt that there were many examples of going beyond the call duty during that difficult period.

Now in their fifth year, our Tour Leader Awards recognise those leaders who have made your adventure extra special.

This year we received nominations for over 250 Tour Leaders – the largest number of nominees yet. After reading all the comments received, we have managed to whittle the leaders down to a shortlist of 12. The winner and two runners up will be decided by a judging panel in mid-July.  The Explore Tour Leader of the year will win £1000, of which half will go to a charity of their choice.

The Top 12 Tour Leaders for 2011

To get to know this year’s Tour Leader Awards nominees a little better we asked each of them a couple of questions – here are some of our favourite answers. If you'd like to travel with any of our nominated leaders, we've  listed some of the trips where our leaders can be found next.

Adam Richardson (UK)	Wael Ramadam (Egypt)	Tracy Zhang (China)	Sudarshan KC (Nepal)
What's the funniest thing which has happened on tour?  Too many to mention, but losing my shorts white-water rafting in Uganda with my group was pretty funny (for everyone else). The Explore sales director, Carl, was also sitting opposite me in the raft trying to avoid eye-contact. And the water was very cold!	What has been a real 'wow' moment? WOW is not even enough to express my excitement when I camped between sand dunes in the great sand sea. The sky was so amazing when lightened with millions of shining stars, wow.	What's the best thing about life on the road as a Tour Leader? Meeting people from the world and learning the different culture from different countries. Introducing my beautiful country to the world and showing how fantastic China is!	Best thing about being a Tour Leader? It's been working with Explore for 10 years! I love this job and it's not because of travelling but getting chance to meet people of different nature, interest, hobbies, etc. Anyway I enjoy the challenge of making sure the people on my trip have a great holiday.
Mohamed Bennacer (Morocco)	Zafer Yucedag (Turkey)	Lou Van Zwanenberg (UK)	Ali Ait Ichou (Morocco)
Wow moment? Many things, one example, when I go over a mountain pass and see a beautiful landscape on the other side, I always stop to enjoy it.	Funniest moment? I had lots of funny moments on my tours. Once I was chased by a determined, big male goat in an ancient site. I think my speech was too long, and the goat got bored :)	Funniest moment? Watching the faces of the local indigenous tribes in Guatemala as they tried Marmite – some loved it and some hated it	Best thing about being a Tour Leader? The best thing about life on the road as a tour leader is meeting new people, I have always been around people, which is why I got into leading. Dealing with different personalities and going to the best places in my country is fantastic.
Peter Cheng (China)	Tran Voan Hoan (Vietnam)	Heather McWalter (UK)	Jorge Mario Rodrigues (Guatemala)
Wow moment? One of the first times I took a group to the great wall; it had just been raining the sky had cleared and the stone on the wall glistened. As I stood and watched the wall sweep out across the hills, I realised how truly beautiful it was. I stood for so long I almost felt rooted to the spot as if I were a part of the wall. I understood then what it really meant to be Chinese with the outstanding but difficult past and bright modern future	Best thing about being a Tour Leader? I've learned many things from the customers, such as culture, customs and living experience. These things have helped me increase my love to my job and now I never get bored on the trips. The trip schedules may be the same but the customers are very different each time.	Best thing about being a Tour Leader? As I am a tour leader that has been fortunate to have worked in many different countries, every night I go to sleep looking forward to the next day as I know in some way it will be completely different from all the others. I love being able to interact with people from different cultures with lives that vary so much from my own, and being able to share that with an Explore group and have some influence on their enjoyment makes it the best job I can imagine.	Wow moment? Things as diverse as the sight of an erupting volcano on the distance; the view of sunset displaying seven shades of blue that are always seven, but never the same, a day so clear one can see way far in the distance or a day with rain so heavy one can barely see the road ahead...

The Judging Panel

The tough decision of who will win the 2011 Tour Leader Awards is down to our panel of judges - made of Explore staff, travel industry professionals and Explore customers

Ashley Toft - Explore Managing Director

Ashley starting working as a Tour Leader for Explore in 1988; he led for 6 years throughout the Middle East, Turkey, Indian Sub-Continent and SE Asia. He also spent a year in Spain and Central America. He still describes Tour Leading as the most instantly satisfying job imaginable. After running a small overland travel company for a couple of years, he joined the Explore office team as an Operations Manager in 1996, before moving onto a variety of roles within Product Development and Customer Services. He became Managing Director in October 2006. He is still a regular Explore traveller and has travelled with his young family on a number of Family Adventures in the last few years including Sweden, Egypt, South Africa and most recently, Nicaragua.

Carolina Gryngarten - Explore Head of Operations

Carolina was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina where she worked for several years as a national guide and as a project co-ordinator for Time Out. After moving to the UK in 2003 she started working for Explore firstly in Reservations and then the Operations Department where she eventually became the Head of Operations in 2008. Carolina has a wealth of travel experience and counts among her favourites the calmness and cuisine of S.E. Asia; the extraordinary sense of going back in time in Papua New Guinea; and the atmosphere, rhythms and music of Brazil. Her 7 years in the Operations Department have enabled her to work closely with many tour leaders and to take part in numerous tour leader training courses both in the UK and around the world.

Amar Grover - Travel Journalist

Amar is a freelance travel writer and photographer based in London. He has travelled widely in the Indian subcontinent from Pakistan to India and Nepal to Bhutan as well as China, the Middle East and North Africa. He has contributed articles to many UK papers, particularly the Financial Times and the Independent on Sunday, and several magazines such as Geographical, Country Life and Wanderlust.

Pam Meacock - Explore customer

Pam has started following in the footsteps of her mother Shirley Meacock and has travelled on ten Explore holidays. She is excited to be a part of the judging panel for the Explore Tour Leader Awards, especially representing the legacy of her mother and her view on what values and attributes are important in a Tour Leader.

Polly Davies - Travel Agent

Having travelled independently in various parts of the world and worked in the travel industry, Polly saw a gap in the market for a travel agent to specialise in walking and adventure holidays. She set up Marco Polo Travel 22 years ago and became the first agent to sell Explore holidays. Polly has travelled extensively and has visited over 80 countries. Her favourites include the awe-inspiring landscapes of Antarctica; piranha fishing in the Brazilian Amazon; the cultural and geographical diversity of Burma; and trekking in the Rwenzori Mountains of the Moon in Uganda.

Sylvia Currie - Explore customer

Sylvia is an active member of our facebook community, and won the chance to be on the judging panel through the facebook page. Sylvia currently works as a staff nurse in Inverness, having previously worked and lived abroad for many years. A loyal Explore customer Sylivia has traveled to many destinations around the world from South East Asia to Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, China and most recently Tuscany, Italy. About Tour Leaders, Sylvia said: "The Tour Leaders are some of the best I've ever come across, it wouldn't be the experience I love without them."