Join Alpine Exploratory

Alpine Exploratory is a specialist provider of walking holidays in the Alps, Scandinavia, the UK and Ireland, both guided and self-guided. We are a team of 8 people and we work in a fun, friendly office on George Street in the middle of Edinburgh.

We aim to give service at a level above the norm, and this takes us a lot of effort. Central to this is a careful knowledge of our hiking routes flowing from our research trips. We take pride in a personal and enthusiastic approach to our clients.

January 2025
We have fully filled two positions that were advertised from November 2023, as below. The advert below, and a separate ad for a Summer position, are here to show the sort of things we look for when we hire, as, if all goes well, we will be doing again soon. Please look out for positions coming up during 2025. Thank you.

About us
Alpine Exploratory is a small travel agency specialising in walking holidays in the Alps, Scandinavia, the UK and Ireland. We work closely with each other in the office and we enjoy our cheery, fair and positive atmosphere. This is the ethos of the company and it applies equally to our trips. We seek to be as good as possible to our clients and our hotels.

Our tasks
- Customer Service: Advising customers and enquirers on the options for their holiday, processing their booking, assembling their itineraries and information packs and keeping in touch throughout the build-up to their trip
- Attention to detail in a fast-paced environment: Booking accommodation, managing our reservations and making payments over email and phone, predominantly working in Google Sheets
- Relationship building: Keeping up our friendly relations with our hotels, mountain huts and freelance mountain guides
- Problem solving and logistics: On-call work to support our clients with trip logistics while they are on their holiday
- Creativity: Showing initiative and thinking in depth about projects to improve our operations, as part of our ongoing discussion
- Research: Looking into new destinations to broaden our range of walking holidays

On-call duties
During our summer season from May to September, we offer support from 8am to 8pm to all customers contacting us via phone or email. This is to help customers with any logistical issues they may encounter during their hiking holiday. During the Summer season, we work around one weekend per month to cover these phone calls and emails. We offer days in lieu and extra pay for this overtime. (Where other companies might call these days Time Off In Lieu, or TOIL, we call them Joy days. We hope that our work involves no toil.) From May to mid-September, the busiest time of the year, we work in shift patterns during the week to ensure that the phone and emails are covered. Our weekday shifts are from 8am to 4pm and 12pm to 8pm.

Skills, some essential and some desired (tell us what you've got)
- Customer service skills such as having a warm, confident, precise manner on email and phone.
- Organisational skills with a keen eye for detail.
- Aptitude for quick and creative work, often done independently.
- Strong writing skills for website content and printed travel materials.
- Experience using Microsoft Office and Google Sheets.
- Interest in travel, the outdoors and hiking.
- A good university degree.
- Knowledge of walking trails in the Alps, Scandinavia, Ireland or the UK.
- Knowledge of German, Italian or French.

Benefits
- Warm, supportive, sometimes hilarious, office enviroment.
- Flexible and generous holiday leave, knowing that we all like to travel.
- Work trips to our destinations each year.
- Contributory pension scheme.
- Option to take some unpaid leave subject to agreement.

Please note that the Travel Advisor roles are currently filled. Thank you.

We are looking for an enthusiastic person to join our friendly team as a Travel Advisor in our office in Edinburgh. This is an exciting and varied role helping our customers set off on their summer hiking holidays, booking their travel arrangements, and helping with any logistical issues during their trip.

Role: Travel Advisor
Start date: January/February 2024 (exact dates TBC)
Duration: Permanent contract
Location: Our office on George Street, Edinburgh
Salary: £24,000 to £28,000 per annum depending on experience
Hours: Monday to Friday 9am-5pm (full-time office based). During our high season (May to mid-September) we work shifts (either 8am to 4pm, or 12 noon to 8pm), with around one weekend per month of paid on-call work.

How to apply
If you are interested in this position, we invite you to send your CV along with a short cover letter to Simon to info@alpineexploratory.com.

This job application closes at 5pm on Monday 1 January 2024.

We will let you know by Friday 5 January 2024 if we'd like to invite you to interview. We expect to run interviews in the week 8-12 January 2024.

Please note that the Summer intern role is not currently available. Thank you.

This is a super chance to see the world of travel from the inside, or to look at it differently, to see the world of small business from the inside. We will include you in our team as we prepare for the Summer trekking season, and you will deal directly with our clients who are almost universally international, experienced and civilised.

Role: Summer intern
Start date: April/May to September/October 2025 (exact dates TBC)
Duration: Fixed contract from April to September (TBC)
Location: Our office on George Street, Edinburgh
Salary: £2,000 per calendar month
Hours: Monday to Friday 9am-5pm (full-time office based). During our high season (May to mid-September) we work shifts (either 8am to 4pm, or 12 noon to 8pm), with around one weekend per month of paid on-call work.

How to apply
If you are interested in this position, we invite you to send your CV along with a short cover letter to Simon to info@alpineexploratory.com.

This job application closes at date to be set.

We will let you know by (date to be set) if we'd like to invite you to interview. We expect to run interviews in the week to be set.

January 2025
We have no leader vacancies at the moment for our Summer 2025 season. However, we always like to hear from IMLs and this regularly results in coffee! For Summer 2025 we have largely assigned leaders to trips, but it's possible we'll have vacancies as Summer plans evolve and as private bookings come in.

Please email Simon Stevens at simon@alpineexploratory.com with your CV. Thanks.

If you've just passed your IML winter assessment, congratulations on becoming an IML! You will find BAIML a wonderful community in the trade. Please drop us a line too.

It's our policy to employ only IMLs as leaders; if you don't yet hold the IML but are working through the scheme or are considering it, please do still contact us, because who knows for the future?

January 2025
At Alpine Exploratory we spend a lot of time developing and implementing our strategy within the travel industry.

We would welcome approaches to discuss strategy from business school faculty and students, or professionals. This could range from informal discussions to forming a case study.

Please email Simon Stevens at simon@alpineexploratory.com.
Thank you.

Thank you for your interest in Alpine Exploratory.

Please contact Simon Stevens at simon@alpineexploratory.com for more information. Thank you.

Guided and Self-Guided Holidays