Visit York Tourism Conference 2025
Sponsored by LNER
The Visit York Tourism Conference returned to York St John University on 29 January 2025. Attendees explored the city's tourism priorities and opportunities and received an overview of Make It York's plans for 2025, along with tourism insights and market trends from VisitBritain.
Not a Visit York member? Find out more here.
Revisit Visit York Tourism Conference 2025
Speakers
Sarah Loftus
Managing Director, Make It York
Sarah is Managing Director of Make It York. Prior to this role she was Chief Executive for LincolnBIG, a not-for-profit place making organisation, tasked with ensuring Lincoln city centre was well maintained, welcoming, creatively animated and had great public spaces. She has over 25 years of experience of reducing inequalities and creating growth, having delivered several complex physical and revenue regeneration and town centre management projects. Sarah holds a MPhil in Town planning from University College London. To see Sarah's presentation, click here.

Stuart Paver
Chair, Make It York & Chair, Pavers
Stuart took up his role as Chairman of Pavers Holdings in 2023 having been Managing Director since 1999 and under his leadership the company has grown significantly to number 190 stores and employ approximately 1950 people in The United Kingdom whilst remaining faithful to its family business ethics. The Pavers Foundation was established in 2018 and to date it has awarded grants of over £2.3M including £425K in humanitarian aid to Ukraine. To see Stuart's presentation, click here.

Katerina Rysova
Senior Insights Manager & Interim Head of Research and Forecasting, VisitBritain
Katerina has 20 years’ experience in Research and Insight. The recent 3 years at VisitBritain and prior to that, she worked as an Insight Manager at Philip Morris International Headquarters in Switzerland. As a Senior Insight Manager, she has been focusing predominantly on domestic tourism insights, however, delivered presentations across both, domestic and inbound tourism using a range of data sources. To see Katerina's presentation, click here.

Alex Warner
Chief Executive, Great Scenic Journeys
Alex has 32 years’ experience in the transport industry, having held senior roles including on the board of train, bus, coach, and logistics companies up to and including at Managing Director and Chair level. For over 14 years, he has also been a columnist in the fortnightly trade press publication ‘Passenger Transport’ magazine, and he is a renowned thought leader and speaker on the conference circuit around customer experience. To see Alex's presentation, click here.

Green Business Forum: Sustainable Tourism

The Green Business Forum hosted a Sustainable Tourism session that focused on ways businesses in the tourism industry could implement sustainable practices to positively impact their revenue and reputation and help York move closer to becoming net zero by 2030. Participating businesses accessed free expert advice, heard from local business case studies, and networked with like-minded local organisations.
Host
Dr Brendan Paddison
As an urban geographer, Brendan's research interests include tourism and destination management, spatial justice, policy, and collaborative forms of destination governance and development. Brendan teaches across a range of Business and Management subject areas, including tourism, responsible business and politics and completed his PhD titled Governance and Community Advocacy in Tourism Development: An International Comparison.
Brendan leads the Visitor Economy and Experience research group at York St John, is co-chair of the Tourism Education Futures Initiative (TEFI) and Chair of the York Tourism Advisory Board. He is Subject Editor: Tourism for the Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education and a member of the editorial boards for the Journal of Teaching in Travel and Tourism and the e-Review of Tourism Research journal.

Exhibitor
Yorwaste
Yorwaste will be on hand to explain the new Simpler Recycling legislation, effective 1 April 2025. Simpler Recycling is a new government reform to the recycling system to make recycling straightforward and consistent. If you are a business with 10+ employees, you will be required to put out dry recyclables and food waste for separate collection from 1 April 2025. It will also apply to micro businesses (less than 10 employees) from 1 April 2027.
You don’t have to navigate these new regulations alone, Yorwaste is here to help. Talk to us about your waste management. We will listen and support you in reaching your goal simply, effectively and cost-efficiently.