Associates

Carmel Dennis

Carmel Dennis has worked in travel and tourism for over 20 years at a variety of operational and management levels. Her particular expertise is in the fields of conferences and business travel, visitor information services and destination marketing.

Recent projects have included visitor services development for City of London, a review of both the tourism potential of the Cultural Olympiad, and of Stratford City and Stratford International for the London Development Agency and a review of the potential for visitor information services in the South East in the lead up to and during 2012. She has also undertaken Visitor Information Strategies for the South East, North East and North West of England.

She combines a broad understanding of the challenges of destination management with a practical approach focusing on realistic opportunities for implementation and developing effective partnerships.

Carmel has particular expertise in the field of conferences and business travel. She managed a business visitor survey for the London Cross River Partnership and has personally undertaken extensive telephone research amongst conference organisers and venue finding agencies on behalf of clients including Southport, Scarborough Borough Council, Tunbridge Wells Borough Council, Tees Valley Development Corporation, Wiltshire Tourism, Telford, Shropshire and the Black Country and the British Association of Conference Destinations.

On behalf of the Business Visits & Events Partnership, she devised and implemented the website for the UK business tourism industry (www.businessvisitsandeventspartnership.com) which she continues to manage on their behalf.

She has considerable expertise in travel trade operations and recently undertook a review of the coach and group travel market for the North West Development Agency.

Since 2001 Carmel has project managed the New Media Trend Watch website on behalf of the European Travel Commission (www.newmediatrendwatch.com/). This site tracks changes in internet usage for travel planning in 54 countries and is now used by all the National Government Tourist Offices in Europe and their partners.

Before going into consultancy, Carmel was Marketing Director at the Heart of England Tourist Board where she had responsibility for the management and implementation of overseas and domestic marketing campaigns, TICs and Information Services and Press and PR. Prior to this she was Tourism Officer for Shrewsbury Borough Council and Conference Officer at the University of Liverpool.

Her early career included work for Saga holidays and for an overseas tour operator and she has lived and worked in France, Spain, Italy and Switzerland.

Carmel has a BA Hons Modern Languages Degree (French, Spanish, Italian) and a Post Graduate Diploma in Tourism and is a member of the Tourism Management Institute.

Key areas of expertise

Tourism strategy and destination development / management planning; new tourism structures; NTO/DMO business planning; destination marketing / market planning; conference marketing and development; visitor services strategy; visitor services operations; research design; research management and delivery; community consultation and involvement; website maintenance; developing public/private sector partnerships.