Join us in celebrating Shalene Dudley. Shalene is the CEO/Lead Destination Wedding + Group Specialist of Latitude Concierge Travels, Ltd. located in Burlington, Ontario. She transitioned to the travel industry full-time after a very successful 15-year career as a construction project manager. With a bachelor of arts in Interior Design from Michigan State University on her resume, Shalene moved to Orlando, FL to follow her passion in hospitality design. Like a dream come true, her first real position was as a Junior Designer/Imagineer with Walt Disney Imagineering in Lake Buena Vista, FL. She became a certified PMP (Project Management Professional) in 2006 and now applies her knowledge to assist her clients with planning, budgeting and executing their plans and dreams for a memorable travel experience.
Her success and ability to effectively network has provided opportunities to partner with Hudson's Bay Gift Registry locations across the Greater Toronto Area as well as develop relationships with Kleinfeld Bridal. In 2015, Shalene won the PAX News Award of Excellence for "Rookie of the Year-2014" and was named one of "6 Travel Professionals You Should Be Following on Facebook" by Canadian Traveler magazine.
Over the last few years, she has facilitated multiple peer-to-peer groups amongst select travel agent delegates from Canada and the US at the exclusive Romance Travel Forum and International Travel Agent Forums. She has also been a panelist for TravelMarket Place Toronto and the Las Vegas Travel Agent Forum. Shalene was asked to lead a session discussing bridal show strategies in Puerto Vallarta at the 2019 Romance Travel Forum.
In 2021 Shalene was nominated for a RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Award and is the first recipient of the inaugural Baxter Media Travel Agent and Beyond Award for her work with the grassroots organization Let’s Get Uncomfortable (LGU). LGU is a platform dedicated to offering a safe space for travel industry professionals to have difficult conversations including but not limited to gender equity, race and representation, and responsible tourism practices. LGU recently coordinated 2 breakout sessions with panels moderated by Dudley entitled “How We Represent and Sell the World We Live In” at the 2021 TravelMarket Place Toronto Conference.
On February 16, Shalene will be a guest speaker in the webinar session entitled Better Business Discovery Process in TIAO’s Building Inclusive Tourism webinar series. This session will focus on how one can Build Better Business practices through diversity, equity, and inclusion which starts with each individual assessing the past, present and future to identify opportunities to improve, adapt and shift.
You can register and learn more at Tourism Industry Association of Ontario | Building Inclusive Tourism: Better Business Discovery Process (tiaontario.ca)
Is there an Ontario tourism leader you think should be featured here? Let us know at feedback@tiaontario.ca.
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