Our Team

Kevin Millington and Alison Burgh head up Acorn Tourism.

Kevin founded Acorn in 1999 when he was working across the Middle East and tracking tourism trends for the UNWTO’s Tourism Vision 2020. Three years later Alison joined him bringing her research, international events and promotions experience. She started to build the business in the UK while Kevin was working in Saudi Arabia and together, they established the limited company in 2002.

Since then, they’ve worked on all of Acorn Tourism’s 320+ projects and advise clients across the UK and worldwide, supported by a vibrant and committed team and a vast network of specialist experts.

Our team is dedicated to ensuring the successful and timely delivery of our projects. We are always here to assist you, regardless of who you usually liaise with, or if you simply want to learn more about our team.

Below is a summary of Kevin and Alison’s experience. We can explain far more about how we can share our expertise with you, so do call or email us at any time!

Kevin Millington has developed an international reputation for tracking tourism in destinations and measuring its economic, social and environmental impacts. Having completed a Computer Science degree followed up by a masters in Tourism Studies, he was determined to put the two together to make a real difference in a sector that is poorly measured, not just in developing countries, but also in developed ones too.

Heading out to Africa, and living for a while in Uganda, Kevin worked with the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UN Tourism) and other agencies such as the World Bank and United Nations Development Programme on a wide range of studies aimed at assisting with the development and measurement of tourism across the region, including Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Eritrea, Libya, Syria and Yemen. During this period, he regularly presented at UN Tourism statistics seminars in Africa and the Middle East.

In 2007 Kevin was contacted by the Falkland Islands Tourist Board to establish a system for measuring tourism in the islands and assess its economic impact. Having worked closely with UN Tourism on their Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) project, he was well versed with its methodology, and set up the first TSA for the Falklands, and continued to establish Tourism Satellite Accounts in over 15 other countries, in particular specialising in small islands. Kevin has since become a regular consultant to the Tourist Board assisting with the development of tourism in the Falklands, working on a wide range of projects including their tourism development strategies, marketing and branding, development and implementation of an accommodation grading scheme and a green tourism assessment scheme.

In 2010 Kevin spotted the need for destinations to have a tool specifically for tracking their tourism sectors, and subsequently set up T-Stats, an online system for destinations to measure what is happening in their cities, regions and countries. The system, operated by his company T-Stats Solutions Limited, is used by destinations across the UK, and in countries in Africa and the Americas.

Today, Kevin continues to combine his statistical experience with a rich career assisting countries with tourism strategy, marketing and branding. To date he has worked and travelled in 97 countries, and always enjoy a new challenge!

Alison Burgh’s passion for sustainable tourism began when she researched the impacts of tourism on women in Kenya’s coastal communities for her university dissertation. Since then, she’s worked in the tourism and hospitality sector, honed her consumer research skills with the Consumers’ Associations in London, Hong Kong, Penang and Sydney, and produced multi-million-dollar international music events, including putting Nelson Mandela on stage at Wembley Stadium in 1990. By 2002, she was ready to settle in the Sussex countryside, learn to row and use the breadth of her experience to build Acorn Tourism.

Working with destination managers, entrepreneurs and funding agencies, Alison shares her market insights and engagement skills to develop community and audience-led strategies and create visitor experiences that build destination brands and marketing content. She has helped emerging countries such as Guyana become award-winning sustainable destinations. As a tourism expert with the CBI for 10 years, she provides SMEs in developing countries with niche market insights to help them diversify their tourism offer. Her work with protected landscapes, country and urban parks looks at how tourism can deliver environmental and community benefits as well as financial sustainability.

In 2021, Alison took on the role of Sustainability Lead for the Tourism Management Institute (TMI) with the intention of supporting the sustainable development of the UK tourism industry. So far, she has developed a sustainability working group, published sustainability policy documents, launched an extensive sustainability resource library, and organised several popular online discussion events for members to share best practices in the industry.

As a Director of Blogilicious.com and UK representative for Green Destinations and Associate Director of thinkingplace, Alison keeps her finger on the pulse of destination tracking, placemaking, sustainable development influencer and content marketing. She is an experienced team leader and a great believer in bringing together innovative teams with diverse skills to ensure her clients benefit from a wealth of shared experience.

Inspiration

Kevin Millington, Director
Kevin has been working with tourism destinations around the world for over 30 years, with strong experience in Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean. He loves small islands and has worked in over 30 across the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Kevin believes that good data underpins all tourism development. Without sound statistics, planning, marketing, and policy making for sustainable tourism development is simply not possible. Consequently, he has specialised in developing and implementing systems of tourism statistics to help destinations make better informed decisions for the future. Alongside this work he has developed T-Stats, an online tourism statistics tracking platform available from T-Stats Solutions.
Alison Burgh, Director
Since our inception 21 years ago, Alison has focused Acorn’s expertise on developing responsible tourism. She has created numerous ‘green’ itineraries across England’s protected landscapes, established India’s first national network of homestays, laid the strategic foundations for Guyana’s ecotourism branding and marketing success, and led Acorn’s drive to become certified as a Green Tourism Gold business. Her passion for engaging communities and using tourism to contribute to local solutions, continues through her work as Head of Sustainability for the Tourism Management Institute, as a Green Destinations representative and by supporting destination managers and businesses on their journey towards improved sustainable practices.
Sally Gandon, Senior Consultant
Sally is our senior researcher and is as comfortable pulling together a wide body of research into client reports as she is developing spreadsheet models. She maintains all our databases that track trends in the tourism sector and keeps abreast of all the latest sector research. She is an expert in market segmentation and profiling tourism destinations, and is responsible for managing most of our primary qualitative and quantitative research ranging from visitor surveys through to focus groups and industry consultations. In her spare time she loves walking her dogs in the glorious East Sussex countryside.
Nicole Layolle, Tourism Consultant and Community Entrepreneur Specialist
Nicole has applied her academic expertise in Human Rights, Environment, Development and Peace Culture to working with communities across Colombia. Her collaborative approach focuses on building entrepreneurial skills in post-conflict societies to create alternative livelihoods in tourism that contribute to conserving biodiversity. She project manages multi-stakeholder programmes, trains trainers and loves being out in the field running governance, sustainable business, or marketing workshops. At the weekend you’ll find her on the beach teaching her young children to kitesurf; one day, maybe they’ll follow in her footsteps as a Colombian national champion!
Kate Withnall, New Business and T-Stats
Kate is Acorn’s efficient and enthusiastic Business Development Manager identifying new projects, assisting with project proposals, producing news items, blogs and website updates. In short, she keeps the engine turning! She also helps T-Stats Solutions with ongoing updates to the national tourism trackers published by Visit Britain, the Office of National Statistics and other key sources on our T-Stats database system. In her spare time, she works at the cutting edge of tourism operating a rural guest house popular with visitors to East Sussex.
Jess Watkins, T-Stats Director
As a director and creator of T-Stats Solutions, Jess is involved in the tracking of tourism for destinations across the UK, as well as working on some of Acorn’s international projects that require this level of expertise. She has a unique knack for combining a wide range of economic, social and environmental tourism data into a single system that can provide a destination with considerable insight into how it is performing.
James Turner, Nomad Consultant
James is a nomad to the core, loving nothing more than getting out on the road and hands on with en-situ development work in destinations. He's equally happy bringing his 15 years of tourism experience to research, undertaking consultation, building strategies or simply helping places manage their visitor economy more effectively. James also gets really excited with implementation and you'll often find him building websites, copywriting, designing stuff or training others to do the same. Of course it's just as likely he'll be off for a run getting to know a place that bit better...
Chilli, Security Guard
Don't tell Chilli but he is the most hopeless security guard we've ever employed. Usually he can be found snoozing on the job and hoovering up left-over lunches. He does love to welcome all our visitors though so we don't really have the heart to hand him his P45.
The Story of the Acorn
Acorn Tourism's name was inspired by the iconic acorn, the fruit of the mighty oak tree, one of our country's most beloved and ancient trees that dominated the English landscape long before us humans. Well-known for its size, majestic appearance and legendary strength, oak is often regarded as the ultimate sustainable hardwood. Timber from these magnificent trees was used for centuries as a building material, creating sturdy frames for buildings, ships and furniture, and continues to be loved by tree-climbing children everywhere. Today, oak remains one of the most popular hardwoods in the country and is the second most common tree throughout our national woodlands and forests. The autumn season has become synonymous with the falling of little acorns as they strive to seed and sustain Britain's ancient woodland for future generations.

Our Team

Inspiration

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