Visit Britain

On Friday I had an away day .First it was to the Visit Britain conference at Yorks racecourse where we heard the statistics from Visit Britain -trends and visitors. Here we were treated to a lovely lunch overlooking the York racecourse where I met up with Katrina Gray from the Wold Cottage and other representives from around Yorkshires businesses . The welcome was made by Sally Blacombe the CEO for Visit Britain. Following Sally's very interesting and up beat speech David Edwards the Head of Research and forecasting spoke of Globals trends,inbound UK trends along with a summary of markey conditions. I loved listening to Holger Lenz -hello Love- who is a very witty speaker who clearly love England .He is the manager for Central and Southern Europe for Visit Britain . I spoke to him after his presentation as he was then rushing back to Germany and when I handed him my card I was very touched that he had heard of me -little old me from Ampleforth.One of his collegues had stayed here last year and spoke highly of me . We then listened to Robin Johnson who for the last 3 years has been Director China for Visit Britain -he too was rushng off as he had to look after Prince William the following day in China. After this was a tea break -delicious cakes by the way -before listening to speakers Jimmy Greene,Nick Hall. Our own Welcome toYorkshire Marketing and Sales Director Peter Dodd. A discussion was then led by Michelle Brown of Visit York . Lastly it was lovely to meet Jo Leslie and see Helen Smith and Craig Nattress who do so much to bring tourists to the area locally . Lots of name dropping here but as you can read it was a very interesting day in the office.