Lead Adventure Planner - Custom

Our client is a long-established, purpose-driven adventure travel company with over two decades of experience in the East African region. Affiliated with a leading international adventure travel organization, they are dedicated to delivering exceptional nature-based travel experiences while actively supporting conservation and local communities.

The Lead Adventure Planner will be responsible for developing, costing, and coordinating bespoke safari itineraries for both agents and direct clients. This includes interpreting client and agent requirements to create logical, appealing, and operationally feasible itineraries supported by accurate costings, particularly for complex, high-value, or sensitive inquiries. The role ensures all proposals are complete, commercially sound, and accurately captured in relevant systems, verifying details such as routing, travel times, availability, rates, margins, and payment conditions. A key aspect is team leadership, involving coaching members, allocating inquiries based on complexity and deadlines, maintaining quality standards, and providing constructive feedback. The planner will also ensure accurate and timely handover of confirmed safaris to operational teams, maintain up-to-date product and destination knowledge for East Africa, and contribute to continuous improvement through regular reporting and identifying trends.

1. Lead the development of tailor-made safari proposals for agents and direct clients.
2. Interpret client and agent requirements to translate them into appropriate safari recommendations.
3. Develop logical, appealing, and operationally feasible itineraries supported by accurate costings.
4. Lead complex, high-value, sensitive, and priority inquiries.
5. Recommend suitable alternatives where preferred properties, services, or routing are unavailable or unsuitable.
6. Provide proactive, accurate, and commercially sound advice.
7. Ensure itinerary proposals are complete, accurate, commercially sound, and clearly presented.
8. Verify routing, travel times, availability, rates, supplements, taxes, exchange rates, margins, payment conditions, inclusions, and exclusions.
9. Ensure proposals and quotation information are accurately captured in the relevant systems.
10. Review amendments and ensure changes are consistently reflected across itineraries, costings, client communication, and systems.
11. Protect agreed profitability and seek approval for discounts or commercial commitments outside delegated authority.
12. Coach and support team members in managing priorities, workloads, and competing demands.
13. Allocate inquiries and priority tasks according to complexity, deadlines, capability, and workload.
14. Maintain visibility of outstanding inquiries, response deadlines, and workload risks.
15. Review team outputs and provide clear, practical guidance.
16. Conduct regular team briefings and individual check-ins.
17. Escalate material workload, service, conduct, or performance concerns appropriately.
18. Maintain high-quality standards across itinerary design, costing, booking coordination, and client communication.
19. Review team outputs to identify errors, inconsistencies, and recurring quality issues.
20. Provide timely feedback and coaching to improve accuracy and consistency.
21. Promote a culture of ownership, attention to detail, and continuous improvement.
22. Maintain current practical knowledge of East African destinations, seasons, properties, services, activities, access, routing, and logistics.
23. Evaluate properties and services against client needs, agent expectations, operational reliability, value, and sustainability considerations.
24. Keep the team informed of product changes, closures, availability constraints, and operational concerns.
25. Participate in product training, property inspections, and familiarisation travel where required.
26. Ensure confirmed custom safaris are accurately and promptly handed over to the relevant operational teams.
27. Maintain accurate inquiry, proposal, and booking information in approved systems.
28. Ensure compliance with sales procedures, service standards, and system workflows.
29. Work closely with Guest Relations, Safari Operations, Finance, and other departments to support seamless delivery.
30. Support the resolution of changes, incidents, and service issues requiring sales input.
31. Prepare regular reports covering inquiry volumes, response times, proposal status, conversions, workload, service issues, and team development.
32. Identify trends, recurring errors, training needs, capacity concerns, and improvement opportunities.
33. Maintain awareness of travel trends and industry developments affecting clients and safari design.
34. Recommend practical improvements to procedures, systems, tools, and service standards.
35. Provide updates and recommendations to senior management.

1. Significant experience in tailor-made safari planning, itinerary design, and costing.
2. Strong practical knowledge of East African destinations, properties, activities, routing, seasons, and logistics.
3. Proven experience working with international travel agents, destination specialists, and/or high-value direct clients.
4. Strong commercial awareness, including margins, rates, exchange rates, taxes, supplements, and profitability.
5. Experience handling complex, high-value, or sensitive travel inquiries.
6. Previous experience leading, coaching, or supervising travel consultants or specialists.
7. Ability to manage competing workloads, service standards, and deadlines.
8. Experience using travel reservation, quotation, or CRM systems.
9. Strong written and spoken English communication skills.
10. A relevant qualification in Tourism Management, Travel & Tourism, Hospitality, Business, Sales, or a related field is advantageous.
11. Extensive practical experience in tailor-made safari sales and operations will be highly valued.
12. Desirable: Experience in luxury, experiential, adventure, or conservation-focused travel.
13. Desirable: Experience with a safari operator, destination management company, or specialist tour operator.
14. Desirable: Strong experience with East African safari products, particularly Kenya and Tanzania.
15. Desirable: Experience with Safari Portal, ResRequest, or comparable travel reservation and quotation platforms.
16. Desirable: Experience working across geographically dispersed teams or multiple operational locations.
17. Desirable: Experience in team performance, quality assurance, or operational workflow improvement.