29 AUG 2017: VisitBritain has announced the appointment of Gavin Landry as its executive vice president for the Americas. Effective immediately, Landry’s remit is to drive new and repeat visitor growth to Britain from the Americas, focusing on key segments and top performing regions including Brazil, Canada and the US, as well as cities with new routes to build connectivity.
His focus is also to convert the inspiration to visit into bookings by getting the right products to the right customers at the right time, developing bookable regional and seasonal products that showcase more of regional Britain working closely with tourism industry partners.
With tourism a critical part of the UK Government’s agenda ahead of future trade deals, Landry will also continue to develop and strengthen strategic partnerships across the three regions.
VisitBritain Chief Executive Sally Balcombe said, “Gavin brings a wealth of market knowledge, industry contacts and public diplomacy experience to the role. We are delighted to have such an experienced industry professional leading one of our most important global regions as we continue to inspire more visitors from the Americas to put Britain top of their list as the must-go-now destination.”
Landry said, “I am thrilled to be joining VisitBritain at such an exciting time for tourism globally and look forward to working together with our partners across the industry to convert the desire to visit Britain into bookings and drive growth from the Americas.
“Tourism is a fiercely competitive global industry and while latest statistics shows strong growth from the Americas we need to be out there promoting the message of welcome, working with partners to make it easier to travel and showcasing the amazing experiences that you can only get in Britain.”
The announcement comes on the back of data released just last week from the UK’s Office for National Statistics which showed that visits from North America to the UK were up 35 percent in June this year compared to the same month in 2016. It brings the overall number of visits from North America to the UK for January to June this year to 2.2 million visits, up 25 percent on the same period last year.
Gavin has a strong background in business and leisure tourism and has held several senior posts in the industry. He joins VisitBritain from New York State where he was executive director of Tourism, having led the iconic I LOVE NEW YORK (NY) programme, and where he developed and implemented strategies to support growth of the tourism industry. During his tenure at I LOVE NY, Gavin and his team increased visitation to New York State by 40 million and set a programme record total economic impact of $100 billion USD.