Meet our team of dedicated, enthusiastic and motivated employees.
Rory Pilkington - Managing Director
Rory started his career after university in 1987 leading African safaris and joined full time at Bailey Robinson in 1990. Rory has a wealth of experience in many of our destinations from as far afield as Australia to the nearer shores of southern Europe. Rory has a great deal of experience in all aspects of travel from leading expeditions to northern Russia to running an extremely busy travel company.
Tiffinie Pride - Director of Marketing & Product
Having spent over 15 years in the travel industry, Tiffinie joined the company 13 years ago and now looks after the product development and marketing. She has travelled to many far-flung destinations and experienced some once in a lifetime opportunities such as being face to face with a polar bear to tiger spotting in India. She also has a wealth of knowledge of the Caribbean, India and South East Asia after extensive travel to these destinations.
Alex Walters
Alex brings a wealth of experience from over a decade in the travel industry and his interesting and varied career is matched by his roles within Bailey Robinson. He joined the company in May 2005 and heads the product and management of the successful India & Indian Ocean team, and well as the team-management of the South East Asia and Australasia department. His travel experience and knowledge of African destinations is considerable and has recently set up our exciting Madagascar programme.
As well as travelling, Alex has a passion for photography and many of his photographs have been used in our brochures. As part of his education when visiting the hotels and resorts he has become somewhat of a spa connoisseur and crème brûlée gourmand. He also became a bit of an authority on termites whilst studying in Zimbabwe for his Geography degree from King's College London, to which he reported his findings to the Royal Geographical Society, where he is a Fellow.
Rebecca Simpson
Rebecca joined the company in December 2006 having worked in the travel industry for several years prior to joining. She has travelled widely both with work and after school, taking in New Zealand, Australia, Tahiti, Thailand, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Dubai, Egypt and France. She is now focusing her passion for travel on the Indian Ocean.
Sarah Parker
Sarah looks after one of our newest destinations; Australasia. Although she joined the travel department in March of last year, she has been working for the company since the summer of 2000. She therefore has a very broad knowledge of varied destinations across the globe from New Zealand and Australia to Argentina, the Caribbean and Indian Ocean islands of Mauritius and the Seychelles. She has also worked in an African safari lodge as well hosting clients at our fishing camps in Russia. With a true love of travel and keen eye for photography, Sarah loves to pass on her experiences and advice.
Kate Rawlins
After graduating from the University of Edinburgh, Kate decided that her love of travel and a degree in geography meant that she was destined to work in travel. She joined Bailey Robinson in 2004 where she was instrumental in expanding our Caribbean programme and has since gone on to establish and develop our South East Asia department. Kate has recently started helping the Indian Ocean team alongside her duties in the Far East. A keen traveller, Kate had already travelled extensively in Australia, South Africa, America and Europe and since working here she has travelled to Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Caribbean. During her travels, she has honed her photography skills and many examples of her work can be found on the website and in our new Journeys brochure.
Dominie Freeman
Dominie has been here for over seven years and has extensive and first hand knowledge of Africa from Tanzania, Kenya, Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Zambia and more recently the Seychelles. Dominie graduated from Oxford Brookes University with BA Hons degree in English and Education immediately and realised her dream of working in the travel industry. As well as an amazing knowledge of Africa she has also travelled in Europe, the Caribbean and more recently to Indonesia where she enjoyed an idyllic honeymoon in Bali and Lombok. She looks after the day to day running of the African safari team and loves to share her passion for Africa by arranging tailor made holidays to this fascinating continent.
Stefanie Ruff
Stefanie began her career with hotel management training before working on the illustrious Royal Scotsman train. She then worked very much at the cutting face of travel as a customer services agent for British Airways before coming to work at Bailey Robinson in 2002. Since then she has travelled extensively in Africa and her love of off-the-beaten track itineraries means that she is ideally suited to planning the most intricate and unusual itineraries. Having been to every single one of the East and Southern African countries we deal with and counting a close encounter with a male silverback gorilla as one of her greatest moments, Stefanie loves imparting her knowledge and advising on the best that Africa has to offer.
Sharon Dismore
After spending over two years working as a tour leader for an overland company in Africa, Sharon decided last year that she wanted to help those who want to travel to Africa from the comfort of an office rather than the back of a truck. She joined us as a travel consultant and has expert, first hand knowledge of many countries in Africa from Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi, South Africa and even the Congo.
Davina Roberts
A natural linguist, Davina is fluent in French and Italian after studying languages at the University of Bath and living in France and Italy. Through her language skills, Davina has sourced the finest hotels and rates in Europe and North Africa and is on hand to guide and advise you. As well as an extensive knowledge of France and Italy, she has also travelled to Greece, Cyprus, Morocco, Portugal, Slovenia, Croatia, Spain and India. Davina loves building up a good rapport with clients and suppliers alike and passes on this enthusiasm to her busy team of sales consultants.
Alison Liddell
After working for large companies such as Virgin and Diageo in London, Alison and her family moved from London back to the countryside in October 2003 where she immediately started working in our Europe and North Africa department. Being a young mother, she is perfectly suited to advise any families travelling with children and has visited the majority of our Europe and North African portfolio of hotels. She has a complete passion for travel and before settling down with a family she travelled extensively in South America, Europe, South East Asia and USA. Alison still finds time to travel with her new family in tow and feels that helping others to plan their holidays is nearly as exciting as planning her own.
Lucy Hartley
Lucy is our newest recruit to the Europe and North Africa department joining last year. However, she brings a huge amount of experience after working for a large tour operator in London. The destinations to where Lucy has travelled are endless and as varied as Australia to Budapest. She is also an accomplished skier after working for two ski seasons in France and was a summer tour leader in Italy. Lucy has a genuine love of travel and an enthusiasm for others to experience exciting and new destinations.
Richard Laker
Richard first set foot in Latin America in November 1987, a date he remembers well as it was the Day of the Revolution in Mexico and everything was shut! He fell in love with the continent and its people and culture and has since spent considerable time there, both working and for pleasure in his quest for knowledge. After university, Richard taught English in Madrid where he became fluent in Spanish and is also competent in Portuguese after studying in both Lisbon and Guatemala. Richard is a true Latin America expert; from the beaches of Mexico to the frozen mass of Antarctica, Richard has travelled the length and breadth of the continent and everywhere in between. A true enthusiast of travel, Richard likes nothing more than creating the most perfect and unforgettable trip through this fascinating continent.
David Somner
A seasoned traveller before joining the industry, he has travelled to destinations as varied as Canada and Poland and many places in between. After graduating from university with a BA (hons) in Travel Management and French, David worked within the business travel sector of the industry. He soon wanted a bigger challenge and is now predominantly looking after our Caribbean programme and has been on an extensive tour around the region. He has already gripped this position with both hands and has seen the finest hotels the Caribbean has to offer first-hand.
Julia Nesbitt
Julia had previously enjoyed her time at Bailey Robinson backing up the India, South East Asia, Australasia, Latin America and Canada teams in where she was given a great insight into the different cultures and societies of the various countries. She has recently moved into the Americas team with her main focus being on the area of Canada and the USA. She is very much looking forward to a trip to Canada this spring and is very excited about the prospect of travelling on the Rocky Mountaineer. This will be the third famous train journey that she will have undertaken. Her first was on the Trans Mongolian Express through China, Mongolia and Siberia on her way back from a year teaching in the fabulous and crazy country of Japan, and the second was on the Orient-Express Hiram Bingham train after completing a once in a life time opportunity to trek to Machu Picchu. Julia has a passion for travelling which has grown from the many family holidays in which she has spent sailing in the Caribbean, the Greek Islands, Croatia, and South East Asia. She is very excited about the new team in which she works and feels it will add a new and exciting element to the countries that Bailey Robinson offers.
Gary Fulford
Gary joined us full time to set up our flight department seven years ago after being in the industry for over fifteen years. As well as overseeing all the booking and issuing of airline tickets, Gary has built up an amazing rapport with our airline partners which means that we can offer the very best fares to you. Gary has sampled many aspects of the travel industry from travel agency to even being a Red Coat at Butlins. Through this varied career he has learnt patience and amazing listening skills as well as the ability of being able to steer through the minefield of airline contracts and fares.
Holly Smith
Holly is one of our younger members of the team but has already worked here for over three years. Holly joined our flight department from Reading College where she gained an AVCE in Travel and Tourism. Since working full time in the industry, Holly has gained a passion for travel and regularly travels to Canada and many other destinations. As well as handling the day to day bookings, Holly is also in charge of monitoring those all important special offer flights.
We have been offering bespoke holidays around the world for over thirty years giving us first hand knowledge of every destination.
