Yvonne Wagoun

Associate, Scotland, UK

Experience

Yvonne Wagoun is a bilingual (German/English) senior tourism manager and business development professional with over 20 years’ experience in all areas of inbound tour operations within the UK and Europe. She has worked with some of the big names in tourism such as Hotelbeds (part of TUI Travel) and Rabbie’s Small Group Tours.

When joining Rabbie’s in 2011, Yvonne successfully expanded the company’s product range adding exclusive travel trade and innovative holiday experiences, realising a business potential which had not been tapped into before.

She believes that customer loyalty is the key to any good business practice, integrity and professional respect will lead to customers following your every step.

Core skills and qualifications

Having worked across the entire spectrum of inbound travel, from incentive and event travel to leisure tourism, her core skills centre around operational aspects of tour operation. These include strategic contracting to service delivery and effective booking operations, product development based on market specific insights, account management and international sales. She has strong stakeholder management experience, gained through general manager and managing director roles.

Yvonne holds a diploma in Communication Studies from the Bavarian Academy of Marketing & Advertising (BAW Munich). Formerly she was vice chair of the Scottish Destination Management Association (SDMA), Team Champion Global Team of the Tourism Innovation Group (TIG) and member of the Focus Group Visit Scotland ‘Festivals working with the trade’.

Specialisms

Yvonne has undertaken a number of project management and research roles for the public sector where a need for the practical requirements of the travel trade played an integral role in strategy setting, business planning and marketing, based on a strong understanding of the marketplace and its key players.

She helps businesses identify opportunities for revenue and growth, based on strategic insights and thorough knowledge of the international leisure travel trade. Her practical approach focusses on workability as well as saleability of product and gains her recognition for adding to the bottom line.

Regularly attending networking and sales event with the national and international travel trade, her German roots link her particularly to the German speaking markets and regular visits to North America with VS and VB make her equally at home within the trade landscape across the pond.