Sector
Travel & Tourism.
Operators, transport, DMCs, tourism partnerships.
Ten years at Virgin Trains across three roles — Corporate Business Development Manager, Travel Trade BDM and Sales Manager — followed earlier years overseas with First Choice Holidays. I've built corporate travel programmes worth £60m+ a year, partnered with regional tourist boards across Manchester, Liverpool, Chester, Birmingham and Glasgow, and launched a Virgin VIP / Group service that delivered £2.4m in its first year.
Common challenges
What I usually find.
- 01
Heavy reliance on one source market, one big agent or one OTA partner.
- 02
Trade and corporate partnerships built informally — no programme, no support, no measurement.
- 03
Regional tourism opportunities (events, conferences, leisure) handled reactively.
- 04
Direct B2C channels squeezed by rising paid-acquisition costs.
How I solve it
How we fix it.
Map buyers, source markets and competitive positioning before any selling begins.
Build trade and corporate partnership programmes with onboarding, commercials and account management built in.
Drive incremental revenue into target regions through tourist boards, conference venues and tour operators.
Diversify revenue mix away from single-channel dependence with documented commercial KPIs.
Sample outcomes
What good looks like.
£0.0m
First-year revenue launching the Virgin Trains VIP / Group product.
£0m
Annual corporate-travel book grown 9% YoY at Virgin Trains.
0 cities
Regional tourism partnerships built across Manchester, Liverpool, Chester, Birmingham and Glasgow.