Hailing from a small town in Denmark, Kim began traveling the world as a teenager. Traveling first to the USA and then to Southeast Asia where encounters with steaming volcanoes in Indonesia and freedom as a backpacker in Thailand made a deep impression.
Driven by post-travel blues afterwards, Kim sought to rekindle his thirst for adventure by taking up a job in Norway at a ski resort where he worked for three seasons.
With both experience and a bit of money in his pocket, Kim decided to heed the call of adventure once more, this time with stints across more than 20 countries across Southeast Asia, Central America and South America.
After temporarily satiating his thirst for adventure, Kim settled back down in Denmark to study tourism at University College of Nordjylland. Upon completion of an internship in New Zealand that offered further opportunities to explore exotic destinations such as Fiji and Samoa, Kim earned a Bachelor’s degree in tourism and secured a job with a well-known Danish travel company based in Bangkok.
Starting this role in 2007, Kim spent 7 years in a variety of roles ranging from sales and reservations to operations, marketing and even a stint as the manager of a resort his company operated. During this time Kim explored much of Southeast Asia, spent 5 weeks on the Trans-Siberian Railway between St Petersburg and Beijing, did a 40 day overland trip to South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya and even managed to watch the World Cups in South Africa 2010, Brazil 2014 and Russia 2018.
In 2014 Kim joined EXO as the Product Manager of EXO Thailand. In 2016, Kim also handled Contracting in Thailand and then, in 2018, he became Thailand Product Manager & Regional Contracting Manager.
Throughout his time at EXO, Kim has been a highly valuable team member. His passion for and understanding of travel, combined with his deep knowledge of the tourism supply chain and outstanding report with partners we work with made him a natural choice for the position of General Manager of Thailand.
Now that you know who he is, we decided to sit down with him to ask him a few questions to give you a bit more insight!
Keen to work with him? Reach out at [email protected]!
SIT DOWN WITH KIM:
What Fascinates you about Asia?
What attracted me to Asia was the culture and the friendliness of the people, as well as the variety of the landscape. Stunning white beaches with swaying palm trees and beautiful lush mountains, something that we do not have in Denmark.
Beyond your passion for travel, what attracts you to the tourism industry?
Basically being able to share my experience and discoveries with other like minded souls made me happy. Over time working with products has been amazing as I love to explore and find new things that we can then turn into a program which we can sell and operate for our guests.
What do you look forward to most about your new role?
It is a very exciting period, as I basically took over and had a few months to learn the additional tasks I had to do and then the reopening of Thailand happened, so we had to manage through the rehiring process and balance the teams and agents expectations. The whole rebuilding is still very exciting and we probably only get one chance of doing this, so we are trying to optimize procedures and stay lean, so we at the end can ensure a profitable operation. Finding the balance is the key, as we have very good and supportive agents and they need good care and attention, so ensuring that we have enough great people to look after them is key.
How do you see Thailand evolving as a tourism destination post-covid?
It will be a better place to visit. It will be different, but a good difference. More focus on sustainability, both from TAT’s side but also one of EXO’s key cornerstones that we want to achieve, being more responsible and sustainable as an operator on the ground. The masses will come back at some point, but it will still take some time, so it is about enjoying the quiet and peaceful Thailand now while you can. There will be many new sites to visit that Thai entrepreneurs have created during the Covid period, getting a few of these singled out and get them workable for our guests will be a cool project and can hopefully set us a bit apart from the competition.
What will we be doing post-Covid to improve our products, services etc?
We will invest in training of guides and staff. Educate them, get them up to date on our existing products and new products and ensure that we get feedback from the field, so that we can act on the things that we find that got hit by the pandemic, so we can adapt accordingly. Lot’s of cool products out there and we will launch dedicated newsletters to agents to highlight these new cool products that should be explored and offered to guests in the period to come.
Keen to work with him? Reach out at [email protected]!
" alt=""> 
" alt=""> 
" alt=""> 
" alt=""> 
" alt=""> 
" alt=""> 
" alt=""> 
" alt=""> 
" alt=""> 
" alt=""> 
" alt=""> 
" alt=""> 
" alt=""> 
" alt=""> 
" alt=""> 
" alt=""> 
" alt=""> 
" alt=""> 
" alt="">