Founder, Your CMO and Director, Visit Isle of Wight
Laura is the founder of Your CMO, a freelance marketing consultant specialising in visitor attractions, leisure and tourism. She partners with attractions, destinations and industry organisations to turn marketing into a genuine commercial driver, focusing on strategy, clarity and results. With experience across theme parks, farm parks, indoor entertainment centres, and destination marketing, she brings a practical, sector-specific lens to everything she does. Alongside her consultancy work, Laura is a Board Director at Visit Isle of Wight and regularly supports organisations across the sector with positioning, demand generation and stakeholder engagement.
Talks by Laura
Managing Director, Agility Marketing
Liz is the Managing Director for visitor attraction specialist, Agility Marketing and the lead behind their digital advertising and conversion optimisation strategies. She boasts over a decade of experience in delivering tangible results. With a relentless drive for results she has steered impressive returns for clients across the attraction industry.
Liz is excited about new technology and dedicated to staying ahead of the curve; leveraging emerging technologies to maximise digital performance. With a proven track record of driving footfall and revenue growth, Liz has unparalleled expertise, that ensures her clients stay out in front.
CEO, Association of Leading Visitor Attractions
A creative, successful communicator, policy analyst, lobbyist and strategist now working at national CEO level representing the UK’s most iconic and important cultural, heritage, artistic and tourism organisations. Over 35 years board experience (chair, director and trustee) of some of the UK’s best known and well regarded NGO’s; senior executive experience across a range of organisations including central government, government agencies, EU and UN political institutions and charities.
His passions are culture, theatre, museums and galleries, heritage, conservation and nature, social justice and anti-discrimination, the power of culture and tourism to transform lives and economies, philanthropy and art. In 2020 and 2021 he was named by Blooloop as one of the world’s 50 most influential people in museums, and in July 2021 won the public vote for the COVID Special Recognition Award from the UK Museums and Heritage Awards for his service to, and leadership of the museums and heritage sector in the UK during the pandemic. He was awarded an OBE in the 2022 Birthday Honours for “services to tourism and to culture”.
CTO, Aer Studios
I am a digital leader with a track record of building great teams and delivering high-value projects for a range of different industries. I have a software engineering background with knowledge including cloud, performance, operations and security. I am a certified developer for a range of platforms, an Umbraco MVP, and a Certified ScrumMaster. I have many years experience dealing with high traffic, global e-commerce platforms from an engineering and operational point of view whilst working client-side. Agency-side, I’ve worked with clients including the BBC, Honda, the Ministry of Defence, Dogs Trust, Bristol Airport, the Royal Navy and others on a diverse range of technology areas including web, e-commerce, apps, IoT and more.
Owner, Loop by Semantic
I’m the owner of Semantic, a digital agency focused on designing, developing and optimising awesome websites. For over 20 years, we’ve worked with some of the best-known attraction and leisure brands to solve their online challenges and get results.
Looking for help to grow your attraction online in 2021? Whether your site is broken, hard to update, expensive to run or you struggle to get your users to visit and buy, we can help. Leisure & tourism is having a tough ride this year, so we’re keen to help where we can – we can spread costs and all work is backed by our 100% satisfaction guarantee. We only invoice happy clients.
Drop me a message and we can book in a quick call, or we can help with a free audit of your current site and work out what opportunities you may be missing.
Talks by Neil
Marketing and Audience Development Consultant
I’m a marketing and audience development consultant, trainer, facilitator and author of the book Marketing Strategy for Museums. My experience and passion are about understanding, connecting with, attracting, and retaining audiences.
I create marketing and audience development strategies, undertake audience and non-user research and consultation, deliver training and facilitate workshops, specialising in cultural and heritage organisations.
My 23 years’ experience spans agency, in-house and consultancy roles for a range of organisations including Jane Austen’s House, London Museum, the Science Museum Group, The Exhibitions Group, Art Fund, Museums Galleries Scotland, the Arts Marketing Association, the Association of Independent Museums, the Museum of East Dorset and Norwich Historic Churches Trust.
I’m also a proud Trustee of Kids in Museums and a high school governor.
🎢 Creative content specialist with extensive experience in the visitor attractions industry.
✨ Expert in producing high-impact content, integrating IP, launching new experiences, and sparking consumer connection through compelling storytelling.
Director – The School Trip
Founder of The School Trip – a new teacher hub that takes the faff out of planning school trips! We work with theatres, museums, galleries and attractions, all across the country, to help them share their educational offering, workshops and resources.
Destination Marketing Manager, Doncaster Culture and Leisure Trust
As Destination Marketing Manager at Doncaster Culture and Leisure Trust (DCLT), I lead the strategic marketing and campaign development for an exciting portfolio of destinations: Doncaster Dome, The Leopard, Hatfield Outdoor Activity Centre & Campsite, The Old Brewhouse, and Crookhill Park Golf Course. My journey with DCLT began in 2019, where I served as Marketing Manager during one of the most challenging periods for the industry—throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. I’m incredibly proud to have returned in 2025 to once again be part of an organisation that’s so integral to Doncaster’s cultural, leisure and entertainment landscape. Since rejoining, I’ve hit the ground running—driving impactful campaigns, re-energising brand presence across my venues, and laying the groundwork for some ambitious future plans. I’m passionate about creating meaningful experiences that connect communities, boost local tourism, and showcase everything that Doncaster has to offer. There’s a real sense of pride in being part of something that brings people together—and I’m excited for what’s still to come.
Nik has pioneered a groundbreaking income diversification strategy for a not-for-profit regimental museum, which now generates 25% of its total turnover online from non-visitors. To overcome the limitations to audience growth imposed by its rural location, Nik used the power of social media to take the museum to the audience. And in doing so, he connected it with a global online community of subject enthusiasts, from which it generated over £2m last year.
Central to this success is The Tank Museum’s industry leading YouTube presence. With over 400m views and 1.2m subscribers, it is one of the biggest museum channels in the world. The nurturing of its online audiences into “fans” allowed The Tank Museum to grow its e-commerce turnover from £190,000 in 2019 to £1.2m in 2020 during the pandemic – with growth continuing since.
Managing Director, Navigate
Simon Jones is Managing Director at Navigate and has spent more than 35 years helping visitor brands grow audiences, revenue, and market presence. Formerly with Merlin Entertainments and We The Curious, he now advises attractions, destinations, and hospitality brands on strategic marketing, commercial growth, and long-term visitor engagement.
Talks by Simon
Director of Visitor Engagement at St Paul’s Cathedral
For almost 30 years, I have had the privilege of working in senior leadership roles at some of the UK’s most iconic cultural and heritage destinations; places that inspire, engage, and welcome millions of visitors each year. My strengths lie in strategic leadership, commercial growth, and building strong, lasting partnerships that ensure organisations remain vibrant, relevant, and financially resilient.
I am passionate about creating sustainable and welcoming visitor experiences that connect with diverse audiences. I have led transformational projects spanning major capital programmes, audience development, organisational change, and business model evolution. During my first weeks at St Paul’s Cathedral, I played a key role in developing and delivering the commercial strategy that helped guide us through the pandemic.
To strengthen my exec experience, I have mentored emerging heritage professionals, delivered seminars, contributed to panel discussions and podcasts, and provided consultancy to peer organisations. I am a returning judge for the National Churches Trust Tourism Awards.
Outside of work, I am Chair of the Board at the Charles Dickens Museum, a Board Member of ALVA (Association of Leading Visitor Attractions), and a Governor at my son’s school in London.
Talks by Sandra
MD, Complete Works
I began working in the Visitor Attraction industry in 2007 writing and directing shows for organisations including London Zoo and the Science Museum. In 2012 I founded Boo Consultancy Ltd, a sister company to the event agency Boo Productions Ltd. Boo Consultancy is a training and staffing agency that applies theatrical techniques to the environments of Visitor Attractions. We predominantly place actors in FOH positions to increase membership sales and visitor donations or deliver workshops to improve the sales and storytelling skills of inhouse teams.
In 2021 we rebranded to Complete Works a nod to the greatest storyteller and our theatrical past and because our approach is holistic, redefining the 3 key elements of success: your visitors, your destination and your team.
We work with many leading organisations including the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Wembley Stadium, The Macallan Distillery and the National Gallery where we won a 2019 Institute of Promotional Marketing award for increasing visitor donations by more than 300% whilst also improving visitor satisfaction scores.
My parents are from Los Angeles, my wife is from Sydney and I was born in London. Thus, I’ve had various accents over the years and matched with the fact that I have an Indian forename and Irish surname, I’ve grown accustomed to people being generally intrigued, mildly amused and partially confused by me. Which is great for networking and tricky when changing energy supplier over the phone. Thankfully I do more networking than the latter. I have 3 hilarious children whom I enjoy making music, drawing cartoons and boxing with.
MD, ATS
“Putting visitors at the heart of your story”
I lead ATS, pioneers in digital visitor experiences for the cultural and heritage sector.
Our team blends storytelling, technology and design to create audio and multimedia tours, digital platforms, films and consultancy that help visitors engage more deeply with some of the world’s most remarkable places.
Today our work supports over 13 million visitor experiences each year across leading attractions including St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Guinness Storehouse, Titanic Belfast and Bletchley Park.
I’m particularly proud of the reputation we’ve built in the sector. ATS holds a Royal Warrant, and we work with institutions that trust us to help them tell their stories to millions of visitors every year.
What motivates me most is building high-energy teams and long-term partnerships that help cultural organisations bring their stories to life through digital experiences.
Chief Executive, Visit Isle of Wight
Dominic Wray is Chief Executive of Visit Isle of Wight, where he is driving a renewed focus on transparency, engagement and results for the Island’s tourism sector. Previously at the helm of Blackgang Chine, Dominic combines hands-on attraction experience with a clear understanding of the challenges facing tourism businesses today. He is passionate about making destination marketing work harder for industry—turning strategy into visible, measurable impact.
Talks by Dominic