Newsletter January 2025

February 25, 2025|Tourism Society|

Happy Chinese New Year!

Welcome to the first newsletter of 2025! We hope the year has started on a high note for everyone. Below, some of our members share their exciting updates.

We’re thrilled to welcome many of you to Prospects 2025 tomorrow at Immediate Media’s offices in London. This hybrid event marks the beginning of an inspiring calendar of Tourism Society events for the year. Join us for an afternoon of insights, exclusive research, and networking with industry leaders to supercharge your 2025 plans. Limited places are still available if you’d like to attend.

Stay tuned for announcements on the dates for two of our key annual networking events: the AGM and the President’s Dinner.

The TCN committee is hard at work organising webinars that are open to all Tourism Society members, while our chapter committees in Manchester & the Northwest, York & the Northeast, Wales, and Scotland are busy planning an exciting year ahead. If you’re particularly interested in engaging with a chapter, feel free to contact the secretariat for more information.

We look forward to seeing you at our events throughout 2025!

 

MEMBERS NEWS:

Board Director Appointed to 

Strategic Advisory Committee for UK Tourism 

Recently-inducted Tourism Society Fellow, and board director Shaon Talukder,

has been selected for the Government’s new Strategic Advisory Committee for

Tourism.

The Committee, has been set up by UK Minister for Tourism, Sir Chris Bryant to grow inbound visitors numbers to 50 million by 2030. Numbers are currently 38 million, down from a peak of 41 million  pre-pandemic.

Shaon, founder of Technology company, Geotourist, was selected for his work in

transforming tourism data and innovat-ing ways to measure economic growth

and visitor footfall.

 

The Committee plans to embed Tourism into the government’s strategy for

economic growth, and improving existing visitor data is a key focus.

With digital revolutions in data and AI

disrupting how the industry operates the UK has an opportunity to build data

foundations which will unlock critical

insights to improve the visitor experience, steer strategic investments in areas

of opportunity, and improve margins, while improving environmental and local

residential impacts.
A Tourism Data Revolution begins as Geotourist partners with 

Mastercard 

Shaon Talukder, FTS

Geotourist, a leading location based travel guide app, announced a ground breaking partnership aimed at revolutionising the travel and tourism sector through advanced data analytics.

The collaboration allows Geotourist to leverage the power of Mastercard’s global anonymised and aggregate transactional insights with its own cutting-edge-location-based insights to provide unprecedented data-driven solutions to key stakeholders in the travel and tourism industry. This joint effort is set to bring about a “New Era” in how destinations, tourism boards, and businesses worldwide optimise and engage with travellers.

The partnership delivers highly actionable insights that allow city planners,

tourism boards, hospitality groups, tourism consultants and others to better understand the preferences and behaviour of tourists.

Combining Mastercard’s privacy-safe, aggregated and anonymised data insights

with Geotourist’s location and user-generated content, enables more personalised, impactful, and sustainable travel experiences.

Former Tourism Society Vice-Chair and TS Scotland Chair Carey makes a come back!

It’s been fantastic being back on the road again since June, after eighteen months off for cancer treatment following a brutal diagnosis. Recent adventures include working with the World Bank in West Africa to explore tourism resilience and diversification in response to climate change and with UNDP in the Balkans to promote tourism as a driver of biodiversity protection; the Middle East is next. Regular updates from TS friends have been a welcome tonic over the past couple of years, but it’s definitely more fun not to be working vicariously!

New Executive Secretary of the Master Innholders announced

Tourism Society Corporate Member, Alistair Sandall FIH, has been announced as the new executive secretary of the Master Innholders. He will take over from Wallace Vincent MBA FIH in March 2025, who retires after a distinguished tenure of eight years in the role.

Alistair brings an exceptional breadth of experience in hospitality, having worked across the industry both in the UK and abroad. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Hospitality, and serves as Treasurer for the Midlands region committee.

“We wish Alistair all the success in his new role. and give our deepest thanks to Wallace for his incredible support over the past eight years, helping to advance and grow the Master Innholders educational programmes and overseeing many annual conferences and meetings”. Commented a spokesperson from the Master Innholders.

Hayley Beer-Gamage, Honorary Fellow, Past Chair

With the government’s ambition to welcome 50 million international visitors to the UK each year by 2030 front of mind, the team at destination management organisation and local visitor economy partnership, Experience Oxfordshire, is seizing every opportunity to ensure the county benefits from this growth. Already launched is the 2025 edition of its popular online publication, the Oxfordshire Visitor Guide, packed with itineraries for long weekend breaks, walks, great places to shop and dine, top picks for accommodation and travel information it’s the essential guide for anyone looking for a break away from the routine. The rest of the year sees a packed programme of trade engagement and a partner events calendar including networking, hospitality business lunch and venues and partner meetings.

Unlock the six top tourism trends for 2025
 
Simpleview

Are you looking to plan engaging content this year to attract visitors and stand out from the crowd? Simpleview, now part of Granicus, has published a new eBook, outlining the top six tourism trends to watch in 2025 — designed to help you shape your content and campaigns to attract more visitors. With over 1,000 clients from destinations across the globe, Simpleview has gathered together all of its insights, along with practical tips and advice to set you up for success in the year ahead.

TCN NEWS – What’s Happening in 2025?
The Tourism Consultants Network (TCN) has an exciting 2025 ahead, packed with opportunities to connect, learn, and grow. TCN will kick off with their first webinar exploring “The Impact of Overtourism”. Dates to be confirmed.
In-person networking is back, starting at the British Travel Trade Show on 20 March—let us know if you’ll attend! A northern networking event follows in June, offering a chance to exchange insights with industry professionals. Finally, join us in November for a special networking event at the World Travel Market. Stay tuned for details and make 2025 a year of meaningful connections with TCN