The judging panel for the 2026 Tassie Tour Guide Award was made up of respected and experienced members of tourism and guiding associated industries. They each volunteered a significant amount of their own time to judge entries and provide entrants with detailed and carefully thought-out feedback.

The judging team was led by the Chair of Judges, whose role was to facilitate and moderate the judging process.

Terri Simpkin - Chair of Judges

Terri is an Associate Professor in Management and the Director of Mischief: a consulting firm specialising in organisational capability development. She is also a NED for social enterprise, Hamlet.

After an award-winning tenure at Drysdale she moved onto global management roles for Anglia Ruskin University and the University of Nottingham in the UK.

Prior to this, Terri held multiple leadership roles in human resources, strategy and business management. As a consultant to the hospitality and tourism sectors, she has worked extensively with government agencies, SMEs, international industry associations and large companies.

She focusses on the complexity of contemporary workforces and emergent leadership challenges across sectors including organisations such as the NHS, Bloomberg, CBRE, BAE Systems and Cambridge University.

Her PhD examined the complexities of occupational decision making in the hospitality industry. As a Churchill Fellow, she researched human resources practices in hospitality and tourism across the United Kingdom, Ireland and the United States including a management programme at Disney in Florida.

Alex Hale

Alex's career as a tour guide has been spent primarily in nature-based tourism where he has worked on tour boats in South East Tasmania and as a multi-day bushwalking guide in places including Freycinet and Bruny Island.

He has also worked as a site-based tour guide at venues including Cascade Brewery. During this time he has not only worked in a tour guide capacity, but has also been able to develop new product and train new tour guides.

Alex has been teaching the Certificate III in Tour Guiding at TasTAFE for the past 15 years, which has provided further opportunity to pass on his experience and knowledge to the next generation of bushwalking & site-based tour guides here in Tassie!

Andrew Harvey

Andrew is currently the Manager of Tourism Projects and Programs in the Parks and Wildlife Service, working primarily with nature based tourism operators and supporting the delivery of visitor experiences in our national parks and reserves.

Andrew has worked across a variety of roles in the Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania over more than 20 years covering planning, environmental assessment, catchment monitoring and project management with highlights being the planning and approvals of the Three Capes Track and involvement in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area management plan.

Andrew is a keen and life long bushwalker and occasional rafter and in a previous life (and century) was a bushwalking, rafting and cycling guide in Tasmania. Andrew is currently continuing to work on a lifetime of discovery and adventure in Tasmania.

Kate Lindsay

Kate Lindsay has spent her career on multiple sides of the tourism industry, which gives her a genuine appreciation for what makes a guide truly stand out.

She's worked the front line of travel advice, helping people plan their trips before they even set foot in a destination, and spent years in hospitality, learning what it takes to make a guest feel looked after, from behind the bar to running corporate events.

Time spent close to guiding operations with the Tasmanian Walking Company gave her a real understanding of what goes into delivering an exceptional experience, from the small details to the bigger picture of guest wellbeing and safety.

Currently, she works with Tourism Tasmania within the International Partnerships team, spending her time connecting Tasmania's best experiences with travellers and buyers around the world.