After seven years at the helm of the British national tourism industry, Sally Balcombe is stepping down as CEO of VisitBritain/VisitEngland. Her departure will take effect this spring.

A new recruitment process will be led by British Tourist Authority (BTA) interim Chair Judith Macgregor.

“When I joined, in 2014, we were already a high performing agency supporting a world-class, successful industry,” said Balcombe. “Until the pandemic, our industry went from strength-to-strength, attracting record numbers of both visits and spend, creating jobs and economic growth. Then COVID struck, hitting our industry first and hardest. Our sector has always been able to adapt and COVID was no different, with conference centres becoming hospitals and museums and attractions taking their collections online.”

“As we enter 2022, our industry continues to be confronted by many challenges and our focus is to drive immediate tourism recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic by building back visitor spend as quickly as possible and supporting the industry.”

Macgregor thanked Balcombe for her “outstanding and creative leadership over so many years of successful development and for steering the agency through the difficulties of the pandemic, setting its priorities and longer-term strategy to support this hard hit industry through crisis to recovery and beyond.”

She added: “Sally has made a significant and lasting contribution to the UK’s tourism industry, not only during her tenure as CEO of VisitBritain/VisitEngland, but with a career spanning more than 40 years in travel. We wish Sally all the very best for the future.”