Associates

Sue Garland

Sue has more than 30 years' experience of working in the tourism destination business. Until recently, she was Deputy Chief Executive of the British Tourist Authority, following which she moved into consultancy. Her assignments have since included work for Yorkshire Forward on future tourism structures.

Sue started her career at the English Tourist Board, where she established its first policy department, working extensively on regional restructuring issues. In 1989 she moved to the BTA. As Deputy Chief Executive, she had responsibility for BTA's relationships with the national and regional tourist boards, government affairs, EU affairs, policy, business planning and human resources. She was Secretary to the BTA Board, a Board member of the London Tourist Board and a regular attendee at the EETB Board. She represented the UK on the European Travel Commission, where she gained considerable knowledge of tourism structures and operations in other European countries. She co-chaired the British Tourism Development Committee, represented BTA on the Tourism Alliance and was a member of the Government's English Tourism Review Panel, chaired by the then Tourism Minister, Kim Howells.

Sue has considerable experience of change management - she masterminded a review of BTA's overseas operations, which resulted in the release of £5m from overheads to spend on pro-active marketing; and of working with public and private sector partners.

Key areas of expertise

Tourism policy and strategy, destination management, destination development planning, business planning, public and private sector partnership-building, and stakeholder and corporate communications.