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Join Alpine Exploratory

Alpine Exploratory is a specialist provider of walking holidays in the Alps, Scandinavia, the UK and Ireland. We are a team of 9 people and we work in a fun, friendly office on Rose Street North Lane 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.

June 2026
We are looking for an Operations Manager, below.
Thank you for your interest.

Operations Manager (Edinburgh)
Job posted: June 2026

Alpine Exploratory is looking for an enthusiastic, self-motivated person to join its friendly team as an Operations Manager in its office in Edinburgh. This is an exciting and varied role overseeing the delivery of self-guided and guided walking holidays across the Alps, the UK and parts of Europe.

Role: Adventure Travel Operations Manager
Start date: August to October 2026 (depending on candidate)
Location: Alpine Exploratory's office in central Edinburgh
Salary: Within the range £36k to £42k depending on experience
Duration: Permanent contract (with 6 month probationary period)
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, 10am to 6pm, or 12 noon to 8pm), with about one weekend per month of paid on-call work, and we would agree this with you before asking you to work such shifts.)

This position will involve taking on a leadership role within the office after a period of initially hands-on work to get used to Alpine Exploratory's processes: including responding to client enquiries, processing bookings and making accommodation bookings.

Key responsibilities
- Overseeing the planning, logistics and delivery of our self-guided and guided walking holidays. Working collaboratively with the AE team to ensure the trips run smoothly from start to finish
- Supporting the team with providing excellent customer service from when clients initially enquire to after their trip (after an initial period of hands-on work to get used to Alpine Exploratory's processes).
- Working across teams to ensure all aspects of trips (accommodation, baggage and taxis) are booked correctly
- Working to improve the trips including going through feedback from the clients
- Analysing data on our trips to make informed decisions about what trips to promote, introduce, adapt or retire
- Running weekly meetings with the team to check in on what people are working on, share updates, brain-storm new ideas and check accommodation availabilities
- Working on-call over the weekends as the first point of contact with clients on their trips and to help solve time-sensitive issues that arise
- Stepping in where needed and contributing across different areas of the business, working closely with colleagues in a small, collaborative team environment to solve problems.

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 this Summer season, we each work about one weekend per month to cover these phone calls and emails. We offer days in lieu and extra pay for this overtime. 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, from 10am to 6pm, or from 12pm to 8pm.

Skills, some essential and some desired (tell us what you've got)
- Minimum of 2 years' experience in adventure tourism, travel, events management or a similar industry, with a record of delivering high-quality experiences
- Experience working in a fast-paced environment where decisions sometimes have to be made quickly
- Confidence in Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel or similar - with a willingness to learn!
- A proactive approach and ability take ownership of tasks - looking for gaps and ways to improve
- Ability to work well overseeing a small team. (You will work closely with our Head of Route Research)
- Interest in travel, the outdoors, or hiking
- Knowledge of German, Italian or French.
- A university degree.

Benefits
- Warm, supportive, often hilarious, office environment.
- Generous (5 weeks plus bank holidays) holiday leave, knowing that we all like to travel.
- Option to take unpaid leave subject to agreement.
- Work trips to our destinations each year.
- Contributory pension scheme.

How to apply
+ Please email Simon Stevens at simon@alpineexploratory.com with your CV and a letter giving your walking/travelling experience.
+ We will email as soon as we can, either to invite you for interview or to say no thanks (but thank you).
+ We hope to interview in July in our Edinburgh office.
+ We hope that someone will start in August-October 2026.

Thank you.

Leading trips (Alps, Scandinavia, UK, Ireland)

June 2026
We have no leader vacancies at the moment for our Summer 2026 season. However, we always like to hear from IMLs and this regularly results in coffee! For Summer 2026 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? We currently have IMLs within our team who have qualified through other countries' schemes, including France and Switzerland.

Strategy (Edinburgh, worldwide)

June 2026
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.

Contact us

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