Lesley is a career tourism professional with an extensive background in tourism training development and delivery, experiential travel, destination development and marketing, and tourism research. She brings a rigorous educational background in marketing, business, tourism development and destination marketing, and teaching, coupled with a comprehensive understanding of the Canadian tourism industry and its government partners at the federal, provincial and local levels.
 
Her 25-year tourism career spans both the public and private spheres across a broad range of tourism sectors including government destination marketing, municipal economic development, airlines, cruise, receptive operator, travel agency, on-the-ground tour operations and the wine industry.
 
Lesley’s talent for leading industry outreach training and development was solidified during her tenure with Destination Canada where she created and managed the successful Canadian Signature Experiences collection and Explorer Quotient research programs, including growing Canada's coast to coast training capacity for the Explorer Quotient Authorized Training team.
 
Her international experience combined with conversational skills in French, Italian, German and Spanish are a real asset to the Tourism Cafe as she begins to lead and supports our different training, and development projects.
 
When she’s not at her desk, you’ll find her cycling, running, skiing, and relaxing in crazy yoga poses.