Newcastle Upon Tyne, England, United Kingdom
A commercially driven, creative marketing and PR professional with 28 years' experience working predominantly in the travel and leisure sectors for brands including Tui, Belmond, Centre Parcs, Kuoni preferred partners Travel Bureau, Close House Golf Resort and currently worldwide holiday company Kuoni UK. A wealth of experience in strategic planning, campaign development, event management, media relations, copy writing, content management and analytics, as well as developing and maintaining stakeholder relationships, both internally and externally, with an honest and open approach. Positive, enthusiastic and extremely organised with a meticulous attention to detail.
Responsible for the strategic marketing planning, budgeting, delivery and performance of worldwide holiday company Kuoni across multiple channels including website management, content creation, paid search, social media, direct mail, email marketing, PR, events and internal communications. Ensuring all customer touchpoints are consistent with brand values and championing the brand internally are also requirements within the role.
Planning and managing the day-to-day delivery of marketing activity to a variety of audiences (leisure, golf, members and corporate partners) for Close House, a luxury golf resort and two-time host to the British Masters 2017 and 2020. Developing a digital content strategy and writing for print, social and web, as well as managing marketing agency partners to deliver on outlined objectives.
Marketing and communications manager for this long-standing, independent travel business, and Kuoni preferred partner, specialising in luxury tailor-made holidays and corporate travel. Planned the marketing strategy to deliver customer events, media relations, social media output, digital and traditional advertising, direct mail and e-marketing. Developed and executed on and off line content strategy, writing for web and print and identified opportunities for strategic partnerships with like-minded businesses, planning and delivering joint activity to raise brand awareness amongst new audiences. Managed the GDPR transition for company compliance in 2018, Feefo customer review integration across the business and led the audit and data migration for website relaunch in 2019. Managed internal communications functions including Intranet and email marketing system Rocketseed. Ownership of marketing budget, with responsibility to track and analyse campaigns and report ROI.
Provided strategic PR counsel, media relations support and copy-writing for print and web to a variety of travel and tourism clients to include luxury villa rental company Oliver's Travels, gap year specialist Quest Overseas, private jet company Last Minute Jet, online late holiday deals website Holiday Discount Centre and the UK's leading consortium of independent travel agents Advantage. Also provided regular PR mentoring services and support to Kuoni preferred partner, Travel Bureau. Offering PR training and on-going monthly face-to-face sessions for junior members of the marketing team.
Pitched and won the PR and marketing contract for Festival of the North East, which ran throughout the North East of England in June 2013. The festival was an Arts Council funded project celebrating the region's creativity and innovation and included over 200 events, making it one of the largest festivals in the UK. Developed a creative marketing and PR strategy to promote the inaugural Festival of the North East to local and national audiences. Aligned with creative partners and local authorities including NGI (Newcastle Gateshead Initiative) to deliver 'FestivalNE' brand identity and brand guidelines. Owned and delivered the marketing campaign for the Festival to include media relations, social media and on-the-ground marketing activity.