National tourism agency VisitBritain/VisitEngland has announced that its deputy CEO Patricia Yates is stepping up to CEO.

The interim appointment comes as the agency’s current CEO Sally Balcombe steps down from 8 April.

Patricia Yates has been with VisitBritain/VisitEngland since 2005, becoming Strategy & Communications Director in 2007. She is responsible for developing and delivering our strategy, research, data, analytics, evaluation, tourism affairs and communications.

Patricia started her career as a journalist working on research and technical publications. She followed this with a long period editing Holiday Which? where she scoped the strategy for and led on all Which?’s research, campaigning and public affairs work in tourism, travel and transport. She also launched and edited the Which? Guide to Hotels for many years.

Patricia is the Chair of TIER – the Tourism Industry Emergency Response group - which coordinates the tourism industry messaging at times of crisis and a Fellow of the Tourism Society. She is an observer on the board of the Tourism Alliance for VisitBritain/VisitEngland.

British Tourist Authority (BTA) Chair Dame Judith Macgregor said:

“On behalf of the BTA Board and VisitBritain/VisitEngland, I am very pleased to announce that Patricia Yates has agreed to step up to CEO in the interim, ensuring a smooth transition for the organisation as well as for the industry. Under Patricia’s leadership and experience I am confident that we can make great progress as we continue to support the industry as recovery begins to get underway.”

VisitBritain/VisitEngland deputy CEO Patricia Yates said:

“I am honoured to be stepping up as CEO, continuing our focus on building back visitor spend as quickly as possible and supporting the industry, playing our part to deliver the ambitions of the UK Government’s Tourism Recovery Plan.

“We know there is pent-up demand for travel, Britain is a destination that people want to visit and in 2022 we have a year of landmark events. Our tourism businesses have innovated to survive through a myriad of restrictions and now is the time to drive the visitor recovery.

“I look forward to continuing to working with all our stakeholders, rebuilding our industry to ensure it is one of the most successful and productive sectors of the economy and to making the strongest possible case for one of the UK’s greatest sectors.”

The agency is currently out in international markets with a £10 million GREAT ‘Welcome to another side of Britain’ campaign. As well as highlighting messages of welcome and reassurance, the campaign is promoting the major events this year, set to be global tourism draws, offering visitors once-in-a-lifetime experiences they can only have in the UK including HM The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.

VisitBritain is also working with the travel trade to ensure that British programmes are thriving and Britain’s tourism offer is being sold internationally. As well as leisure travel, VisitBritain will support the business events industry to recover and rebuild, enabling destinations to win international conferences and exhibitions.

Tourism is usually worth more than £127 billion to the economy, its third largest service export and a major part of British trade, supporting hundreds of thousands of small businesses and entrepreneurs and employing more than 3.1 million people across the UK.