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Visit East Anglia hosted its first annual tourism conference on 27 September 2012.
Over 200 delegates across the region came to hear from inspirational speakers from the tourism sector and to find out more about Visit East Anglia and its marketing opportunities for the year ahead.
Aimed at tourism businesses, the conference offered a unique chance to network with like-minded business leaders, hear from industry leaders such as New Anglia LEP, Trip Advisor, Greater Anglia and New Vision Group.
A big thank you to our sponsors of the event: Birketts LLP, Larking Gowen, Lloyds TSB and Ryan Insurance whose support is much appreciated. If you attended but didn't get chance to speak to them, more information and contact details can be found here.
Media coverage of the event
"Counties are 'cool', tourism leaders are told" EADT, 28 Sept 2012
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If you're interested in joining VEA or would like to be kept up to date on future events, contact us for more information. For details on joining VEA, please click here.
Speakers
Keith Brown, Chief Executive Visit East Anglia Link to presentation
After graduating from Kingston University in Surrey Keith joined British Airways as a commercial trainee and worked in marketing specialising in third party partnerships including car rental and hotel sector development. He then moved directly into the hotel industry and held several senior marketing roles and was Vice President of Marketing for Hilton plc. until 2006 after which he joined East of England Tourism as Chief Executive. As a result of the total withdrawal of its public sector funding and EET’s eventual closure, Keith worked with a group of major East Anglian tourism business leaders on a new commercially driven organisation that culminated in the launch of Visit East Anglia on 1st September 2011.
Richard Ellis, Managing Director The Original Cottage Company
Richard Ellis is the founder and Managing Director of The Original Cottage Company, one of the largest independent self-catering holiday agencies in the country, whose brands include Norfolk Country Cottages, Suffolk Secrets, Marsden’s Cottage Holidays, Freedom Holiday Homes and Ingrid Flute’s Yorkshire Holiday Cottages. In addition he is Chairman of Visit East Anglia and Sherringham Little Theatre, Deputy Chairman of The Forum Trust and the Holt Festival, a Trustee of the Theatre Royal Norwich and a Governor of Norwich University College of the Arts.
Claire’s background was in the large corporate world, she had a dream job of working with chocolate! With a small family, she realised that her daily three hour commute to London was unsustainable. The long travel and 5am starts forced her to re-appraise my life. So when her children were one and three, she decided it was time to follow her dream and passion, and to start up her own. She swapped the world of big business for something closer to home - Breckland Orchard.
"Consumers taking control" Link to presentation
Karen Plumb, Senior Director of Sales Strategy at TripAdvisor
TripAdvisor is a travel website that assists customers in gathering travel information, posting reviews and opinions of travel-related content and engaging in interactive travel forums. TripAdvisor was an early adopter of user generated content. The website services are free to users, who provide most of the content, and the website is supported by an advertising business model.
"The future of tourism technology in East Anglia"
Ben Tagg, Managing Director New Vision Group
Ben recently celebrated 25 successful years as pioneer and entrepreneur in new media and (half) jokingly observed “only another 25 years to go then!”
Currently Managing Director at NVG: leaders in tourism technology, Ben and the team have developed the world’s leading multi –award winning e-tourism platform in use throughout the UK and now further afield.
He’s also involved in a number of other technology businesses including publishing, TV and digital signage.
"Why tourism matters"
Andy Wood, Director Adnams
Dr Andy Wood joined Adnams in 1994 with responsibility for developing its customer service and supply chain operations. He joined the Board in 2000 with the additional responsibility of Sales, Marketing and the Wine business. He became Managing Director in 2006 and Chief Executive in 2010. Andy has an MBA, a doctorate from Cranfield University and in 2010 he was awarded an Honorary doctorate from Anglia Ruskin University.
