Kirsty is a Director at Elenya, bringing extensive experience in visitor experience, hospitality, project management and administration to the business.
Her career began in travel and tourism, which she studied at both college and university before joining a major holiday company as a travel consultant. She went on to spend several years working overseas for TUI, living and working across Western Europe and Scandinavia.
Those roles gave Kirsty first-hand experience of what makes a great visitor experience across very different settings and audiences. Her career has taken her from busy resorts in Ibiza to luxury destinations in the Algarve and Menorca, as well as two winter seasons in Finnish Lapland. Working directly with guests also meant dealing with the less predictable side of visitor experience, solving problems, managing expectations and making sure people felt looked after when things did not quite go to plan.
After returning to the UK during the COVID pandemic, Kirsty moved into luxury hospitality, working as a hotel manager at a spa and wedding venue in the Peak District. This added further experience of managing high-quality visitor experiences alongside the operational, administrative and organisational work needed to deliver them.
At Elenya, Kirsty brings that experience together with her strengths in project management, finance and administration. She helps keep the business and its projects running smoothly, overseeing the systems and practical detail behind our work and supporting the coordination of clients, suppliers and project partners.
Her background also gives her a useful perspective on Elenya’s work with museums, heritage attractions and other visitor-facing organisations. She understands visitor experience from the delivery side as well as the research side, and the difference that seemingly small details can make to someone’s overall experience.
Travel remains a big part of Kirsty’s life. She has travelled extensively across Europe and further afield, from seeing the Northern Lights in rural Lapland to travelling through India and Sri Lanka and cruising around Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. That curiosity about places, people and experiences is something she brings to her work with Elenya too.
