ABOUT BANNIKIN
who we are | what we do | our approach
The Bannikin Team has more than 20 years experience working in the travel and tourism industry. We’ve worked with niche and luxury operators including Butterfield & Robinson, Cruise North Expeditions & Gray & Co.; regions and DMO’s including the Canadian Tourism Commission,
Nunavut Tourism and the Dominican Republic, governments, media outlets, associations and more. In addition to our in-house design team and social media expert, we frequently engage targetted tourism experts with a wide range of specializations.
SHANNON GUIHAN | Co-founder
BRM, Acadia University, NS, Canada
MSc Tourism & Environment, Oxford, UK
A self starter with more than twelve years international experience in the tourism industry, Shannon has worked with tour operators, hotels, governments, NGO’s, destination management organizations, sustainable tourism management and various travel marketing projects.
Shannon’s accomplishments include developing a culinary tourism program as the Director of Michelin Food & Travel; establishing a profile for the Icarus Foundation as its Executive Director; and developing and implementing a sustainable
tourism policy for international tour operator Butterfield & Robinson. She is a member of The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) and a board member of Transportation Options, an Ontario based non-profit focused on supporting sustainable tourism development innovations and ideas.
She has worked in Iceland and Greenland, South America, China, Europe and North America. With a love for travel, Shannon works to combine that with two other loves, cycling and food. Most often, Shannon can be found cycling (and eating) or planning the next trip that allows her to do both.
JILLIAN DICKENS | Co-founder
B-Journ, Journalism, Langara, BC, Canada
Communications, Athabasca U, AB, Canada
Jillian has been building niche travel brands and businesses for the past eight years in some of the world's wildest places. She has worked with Destination management organizations, Aboriginal travel brands, Olympics strategists, small and mid-sized operators, and independent hoteliers. Prior to Bannikin, Jillian’s most recent role was Marketing and Communications Director for Inuit-owned Cruise North Expeditions.
With a focus on marketing and public relations, Jillian has built life-long relationships with editors
and travel writers across the globe and has worked closely with local operators to develop tourism in Canada’s North, Greenland, Argentina, the Caribbean and the United States. Jillian is passionate about developing travel responsibly, and has a keen eye for strategic measures that generate results.
Jillian continues to write travel stories for Frommers Travel Guides, Canada’s National newspaper, The Globe and Mail and enRoute. She is the author of enRoute’s online Toronto guide and Frommer’s Nunavut guide.
EMILY BLAKE | Media Relations Manager
Emily Blake, a native of Victoria, B.C. studied photography and curatorial practices at O.C.A.D. in Toronto, Canada. Here she was selected to participate in the Florence Studio Program, allowing her to spend a year developing her art practice and studying art history in Italy. Upon completion of her degree, she entered the world of journalism, interning at Fashion Magazine followed by a freelance writing, styling and market editing career with a variety of outlets including The Globe and Mail, Elle Canada, Lush and Argyle Magazines. Her knowledge of the luxury lifestyle
market and comprehensive media relationships made her transition into public relations smooth when she joined one of Canada’s leading luxury travel PR agencies in 2008. Here Emily worked with high profile luxury travel properties such as Toronto’s Hazelton Hotel and Barbados’ The Crane Residential Resort, premier wine brands like Robert Mondavi and Kim Crawford, and marquis lifestyle brands such as Aeroplan. Her strengths include a thorough knowledge of the media landscape, an eye for detail and a creative background that lends itself to unique public relations strategy development.
