Steve Ridgw
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| Hospitality Today | Spring 2017
Steve Ridgway CBE the helm at
Steve Ridgway CBE took up the post of BTA( VisitBritain / VisitEngland) Chairman on 1 April 2017, appointed by Culture Secretary Karen Bradley.
At the same time, Denis Wormwell( a BTA board member since 2009) will take up the role of chair of the VisitEngland advisory board, taking over from Lady Penny Cobham. Both appointments are for three years.
Until December, Wormwell was chief executive UK tour operating and hotel business Shearings Leisure Group, a position he held for almost ten years. During this time he led a management buyout of the business and under his stewardship the business grew to carry over 1.1 million customers a year.
Wormwell spent three years as a director of Thomas Cook Tour Operations, before joining National Express Group where he held the role of chief executive of the coach business for six years and was credited with growing and transforming the brand.
The handover to Ridgway from Christopher Rodrigues CBE( right), who has led BTA for ten years, was marked by a reception this month held in grandeur of the Locarno Suite at the Foreign Office, where the best of British seafood was showcased alongside Nyetimber sparkling wine from Sussex – which has beaten Champagne in blind tastings, just as VisitBritain hopes to beat France in attracting international tourists.
BTA( the British Tourist Authority) says that Ridgway as Chairman will“ provide strategic leadership to our work to boost tourism to and within Britain, leading the delivery of a new era of greater coherence and partnership for the visitor economy”.
BTA’ s Chairman works with VisitBritain’ s private and public sector partners in England, Scotland and Wales to aid VisitBritain and VisitEngland in strengthening the marketing of Britain as a tourist destination overseas.
Ridgway becomes Chairman after having sat on the BTA Board since 2013. He is also Non-Executive Chairman of StartJG, an international brand agency, following 13 years as Chief Executive of Virgin Atlantic Airways.
He began his business career at Sir James Goldsmith’ s Cavenham Foods, and later joined the Toleman Group, as Business Development Manager( 1979-81).