Convention Speakers
Nick Brooks-Sykes
Director of Tourism at Marketing Manchester
Nick Brooks-Sykes is Director of Tourism at Marketing Manchester and Vice Chairman of the Tourism Alliance.
He was educated at the University of Stirling and the Scottish Hotel School, having spent his formative years immersed in the hospitality industry at his parent’s 52-bedroom hotel. His early career began at Glasgow Chamber of Commerce and, as a fluent French and German speaker, he has spent time working for tour operators in both Paris and Germany.
Nick has over thirty years’ experience in the tourism sector, having previously held a number of senior management roles at the North West Tourist Board and North West Regional Development Agency. Until 2014, he was Chief Executive of Bath Tourism Plus, recognised as one of the country’s leading destination management organisations.
Nick leads the tourism, insights and convention teams at Marketing Manchester, the agency charged with promoting Manchester on the national and international stage and the official tourist board for the city region.
Richard Toomer
Executive Director - Tourism Alliance
Richard Toomer is the Executive Director of The Tourism Alliance, the umbrella trade association for the whole tourism sector. The Alliance has more than 70 member associations which are all trade bodies, membership organisations or Destination Management Organisations. The Alliance’s main roles are to provide a unified voice for the tourism industry to government and parliament, to provide insight and coordination on policy matters to member organisations, and provide a forum for debate and discussion on important policy topics through its events programme.
Richard has been with the Tourism Alliance since 2022. He has previously had roles in communications, public affairs, policy, campaigning, and external relations with the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS) and the British Airline Pilots’ Association (BALPA). He previously worked as a parliamentary assistant for a Member of Parliament for five years.
Richard has a bachelor’s degree in politics from Durham University and a master’s degree in management from the Durham Business School. He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (MCIPR).
Richard represents the tourism sector on a number of national boards and committees, including the Tourism Industry Council.
Kris Hall,
CEO - The Burnt Chef Project
Kris founded The Burnt Chef Project in May 2019, a not-for-profit community interest focussed on people-focussed sustainability. After 12 years of working in hospitality and experiencing mental illness, Kris launched the Project to tackle the stigma of mental health within hospitality. Through corporate training sessions and merchandise sales the Project grew and now provides free-to-access 24/7 support services as well as health and wellbeing training across the globe.
Kevin Millington
Director, T-Stats Solutions Limited
Kevin has over 30 years’ experience in the tourism sector, building up a strong reputation for creating tourism solutions for public and private sector organisations, having worked in over 60 countries on more that 160 projects.
Kevin started his career working for the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) assisting countries develop research and statistics departments for the measurement and tracking of their tourism sectors. Over 20 years he worked for a wide range of countries establishing visitor and business surveys, tracking visitor arrivals, trip characteristics, accommodation occupancy and other supply and demand indicators.
In 2010 he started to focus on destinations closer to home when Visit Bath engaged T-Stats to develop a tracking system for the City and wider North East Somerset area. This led to the establishment, and increasing sophistication, of the T-Stats Solutions system that is today used by several destination management organisations and councils around the UK to track their visitor economies.
Rachel McCaffery
Sustainability Lead – VisitEngland
Sustainability Lead at VisitEngland, Rachel McCaffery, has 20 years experience working with tourism businesses, governments and international organisations on sustainable and regenerative tourism development and practical implementation.
An international expert on sustainable tourism, Rachel has played a key role in the creation of a number of industry tools in use worldwide, including the European Travel Commission’s Handbook on Sustainable Tourism Implementation for NTOs, the Travelife Certification for Accommodations and ABTA’s Global Guidance on Animal Welfare.
Richard Veal
Managing Director - Simpleview Europe
Richard has been at the forefront of developing digital marketing platforms and services to destinations for over 20 years, initially as New Mind and now as Managing Director of Simpleview Europe.
One of the differentiating factors behind Simpleview’s success is the significant investment they have made in software development for public sector tourism. Simpleview's Destination Management System was launched in 2001 and is now a mission-critical application used by over 900 destinations world-wide.
Sadie Rowell
Head of Sales| AA Media & Visit England Assessment Services
Janine Williams
Director of Marketing – Leicestershire Promotions
With over 25 years’ experience in tourism and marketing, Janine specialises in developing and delivering strategic marketing objectives for destinations. She also has particular experience in developing partnerships and initiatives response to strategic opportunities including events, festivals and bespoke projects and marketing campaigns including Stay Play Explore.
Educated at MMU and University of University, Janine joined the company from the BBC where she worked in local radio. She holds several CIM qualifications and accreditations and heads up the Leicestershire Promotions Tourism and Hospitality Awards team and is on the Visit England Tourism Awards steering group.
Laura Wakelin
Director - Blue Sail
Laura is a Director at Blue Sail, a tourism and destination consultancy established 17 years ago and working with clients including destination management organisations, local authorities, visitor attractions and events.
She is an experienced, visitor-focused marketing and communications specialist with over 15 years’ experience in the tourism, museums and heritage sectors. Prior to Blue Sail, Laura was Marketing Director and Deputy Chief Executive at the Black Country Living Museum, a large industrial heritage attraction in the West Midlands and previously held communications and management roles in a range of organisations including 5 years at English Heritage, developing marketing plans and audience development strategies .
Laura has worked across the UK and Ireland advising on destination marketing and positioning, product & visitor experience development, and destination management. Recently she has worked with clients including Visit West, Experience Wakefield, Belfast City Council, and Visit Worcestershire. She often takes a strategic lead on Blue Sail’s visitor attractions work having recently managed projects with clients including Irish National Heritage Park, World Heritage UK and Russell-Cotes Museum & Art Gallery.
Laura is also a guest lecturer and industry advisor for University College Birmingham’s tourism and attractions management undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes.
Duncan Stewart,
Managing Partner - 56 Degree Insight
Duncan is joint founding partner of 56 Degree Insight, a consumer insights consultancy based in Edinburgh but serving clients across the UK and overseas.
He has worked in research and insights consultancy for over 25 years, across a range of private and public sectors including numerous consumer and B2B projects for a range of well known brands and organisations across many different sectors. Prior to setting up 56 Degree Insight he was a Director at global market research agency Kantar and previously worked in market research roles at the Scottish and Yorkshire Tourist Boards.
During his career Duncan has developed expertise in a number of key areas including the measurement of population behaviours and attitudes, customer experience and evaluating brand and communications.
Duncan’s main areas of experience is in travel and tourism related research. Whilst at Kantar he was account manager for brand tracking projects undertaken for major travel sector clients including TUI and Center Parcs. More recently while at 56 Degree Insight he has managed projects for a wide range organisations operating in the UK tourism sector including many Scottish and English DMOs, VisitScotland, Caledonian MacBrayne ferries, Edinburgh Bus Tours and a number of hotel groups.
Professor Marcjanna Augustyn, Head of Centre for Sustainable Business Transformations,
Bournemouth University Business School
Professor Augustyn has a MSc in Economics, a PhD in Economics and 28 years of research and education experience in UK universities. Currently at Bournemouth University, Marcjanna is a Professor of Management and the Head of Centre for Sustainable Business Transformations.
Professor Augustyn is a distinguished scholar and established thought leader in business management, strategy and organisational performance. Marcjanna’s work has been published extensively, disseminated internationally and regularly cited by leading scholars. Much of her research has been carried out in the context of tourism and hospitality industries, tourism destinations and tourism SMEs.
Among numerous publications, Professor Augustyn is co-author of a book “Tourism Destination Quality: Attributes and Dimensions (with Arthur Seakhoa-King and Peter Mason, 2020), co-editor of a book “Tourism in the New Europe: Perspectives on SME Policies and Practices” (with Rhodri Thomas, 2006), and co-editor of a book “How to use Mixed Methods in Tourism Research” (with Peter Mason and Arthur Seakhoa-King, 2024).
Professor Augustyn has led successful high impact externally funded interdisciplinary research projects, involving diverse stakeholders from the public, private and non-profit making organizations. Marcjanna has advised various organisations and tourism destinations on competitive management strategies and practices.
Professor Augustyn is a member of Editorial Review Boards for several academic journals and a member of the British Academy of Management (UK), the Strategic Management Society (USA), the Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (UK), and the International Association of Scientific Experts in Tourism (Switzerland). Marcjanna can be contacted at maugustyn@bournemouth.ac.uk.
Dr Peter Mason,
Senior Lecturer, London Metropolitan University and Visiting Professor, Bournemouth University.
Dr Mason has a BSc. Econ. from the University of London, a research Masters’ from Bath University, and a PhD awarded by Plymouth University. He has published ten single authored books, including Tourism Impacts, Planning and Management, (now in its 4th edition), as well as co-authoring Tourism Destination Quality: Attributes and Dimensions, with Prof. Marcjanna Augustyn and Dr Arthur Seakhoa-King. He also has twenty-four book chapters and over fifty refereed journal publications. He has published articles in the top-rated tourism journals, supervised/examined over two hundred Masters’ dissertations, supervised British students to successful PhD completion and examined PhDs in the UK and Australia.
He was previously Professor of Tourism at Victoria University, Melbourne and prior to that was Professor of Tourism Management and Head of the Department of Tourism and Leisure at Bedfordshire University. His research interests have evolved from a concern with tourism impacts to a focus on destination planning and management, and more recently destination quality and sustainability.
In addition to lecturing and supervising, he has been involved in significant amounts of quality assurance work in the UK and other areas of the world and has worked extensively for EKKA, the Estonian Ministry of Higher Education and ASHE, the Croatian Ministry of Higher Education in the evaluation of their respective Tourism and Hospitality curricula from undergraduate to PhD level. He has conducted tourism research on behalf of East Devon District Council, Palmerston North City Council (New Zealand) as well as being a member of the East of England ‘i10’ IT project.
He is semi-retired, but currently has a fractional position in Tourism at London Metropolitan University and until August 2021 was Visiting Professor of Tourism at London South Bank University. He also lectures and supervises regularly at the Luxury Hotel School, Paris
Dr Philip Stone
Director - Institute for Dark Tourism Research
Dr Philip Stone is founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Dark Tourism Research (iDTR). The iDTR, established in 2012, is an internationally recognised centre of excellence for dark tourism scholarship based at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), Preston, UK.
Philip has a PhD in Thanatology, which appraised mortality and dark tourism and its fundamental interrelationships with the cultural condition of contemporary society. Philip is a former tutor at the University of Cambridge. He also delivers Guest Lectures on the subject of difficult heritage and dark tourism to schools, colleges and universities across the UK, USA and continental Europe. He is also an External Examiner for numerous programmes at UK HEI’s, and a peer-reviewer for many academic journals and publishers. Philip also works on numerous collaborative research projects in dark tourism and heritage, including with partners across the UK, USA, Canada, Rwanda, Australia, China, Holland, and Ireland. He is also the UK College Partnership Lead for the School. Philip is an established Media Consultant on dark tourism. Clients include BBC TV and radio, CNN, History Television, Der Spiegel, New York Times, Huffington Post, Washington Post, The New Scientist, The Guardian, and The Conversation. He has given over 150 media interviews to local, national and international press and broadcast media. Philip has also presented at many international conferences, including delivering Conference Keynotes in the UK, USA, Taiwan, Estonia, Poland, Holland, and Germany. He has also convened and hosted over 10 national and international academic conferences at the University of Central Lancashire.
Nigel McDonald
Sustainable Tourism Officer, Shropshire Hills National Landscape
The Shropshire Hills National Landscape covers about a quarter of Shropshire, attracting a significant proportion of the 10-million visitors that visit the county each year. It is known for its tranquillity, rich heritage, and inspirational views. It is the landscape that inspired the earliest geologists to forge new concepts leading to Shropshire placenames being used ubiquitously across the world to describe types of rock.
Nigel has worked there for over 20-years, specialising in heritage and nature interpretation, and for the last 10-years, community based sustainable approaches to tourism. He is currently working with various partners locally and at a county level to develop regenerative projects and strategies that encourage visitors to do more to restore nature and reduce the effects of climate change.
The Shropshire Hills have held the Charter for Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas, awarded by the Europarc Federation, since 2011. Nigel and colleagues were successful in renewing the charter in 2019 and are awaiting the results of the latest appraisal.
He holds a Degree in Environmental Pollution Science and an MA in Heritage Management.
Simon Faulkner
Lecturer, University College Birmingham
Simon is Senior Lecturer and Academic Excellence Coach at University College Birmingham. Lecturing across the International Tourism Management curriculum, Simon demonstrates a keen interest in destination management, regenerative tourism and futureproofing tourism destinations. Simon has worked with tourist stakeholders in both the UK and Central America to develop regenerative tourism policies and develop host community tourism.
Dr. Roya Rahimi
University of Wolverhampton (UoW) and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Dr. Roya Rahimi is a Reader in Marketing and Leisure Management at the University of Wolverhampton (UoW) and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. In 2022, she founded and leads the Marketing Research Hub (MRH), which has been officially recognized by the British Academy of Management as the marketing hub for the West Midlands.
Dr. Rahimi also has a strong track record in securing large-scale research grants and leading impactful multidisciplinary projects. She serves as REF co-coordinator for UOA17 at the Business School. Additionally, she is Associate Editor of Tourism and Hospitality Insight and has published over 40 papers in top-tier journals. She will chair the 6th International Managing Tourism Across Continents (MTCON) conference in May 2025, Istanbul, Turkey.
Lindsay Rae
Deputy Director and Head of Industry Engagement
Visit Peak District & Derbyshire
Dr. Oksana Shyber has over 15 years of academic experience, showcasing her accomplishments in higher education and research, including the publication of more than 30 works in the field of Cultural Studies. Her expertise extends to the organisation of events, leisure, tourism, and recreation. Throughout her career, she has played a key role in organising both international and national conferences at Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts, as well as educational events for students. These include masterclasses featuring renowned professionals and experts in the field of event management in Ukraine.
In 2021, Oksana Shyber earned her PhD in Cultural Studies, and in 2022, she was awarded the academic title of Associate Professor in the Department of Event Organisation, Fashion, and Show Business at Kyiv University of Culture. She is a lecturer and course author of Event Management, Theory and History of Major Events, and Cultural Studies.
Her latest research focuses on exploring the challenges posed by conflict within the events sector, specifically on crisis event management and the relationship between the events industry, citizens, society, and the state during periods of heightened risk and uncertainty.
Maria Manion
Chief Executive, Cambridge BID
Maria is Chief Executive at Cambridge BID prior to this she headed up Watford BID for 7 years. Before returning to the south Maria worked in Newcastle as a Senior Regeneration Manager and in Northumberland as a Head of Service responsible for Tourism, Economic Development, Town Centre regeneration, Arts & Culture and Sports Development. She led on and managed a number of capital and revenue projects, including a regeneration programme across the rural coalfield, development of a long distance walk and cycle routes, a new build Tourist Information Centre, car park and toilet block and the restoration on ancient listed monument.
In between Northumberland and Newcastle Maria worked in Italy renovating a villa and as a business development consultant, where she identified a site and managed the development of a Youth Hostel in Alnwick, securing £500,000 grant funding for it’s development. The YH was opened by HRH Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip.
With thanks to our event speakers.