Our Meet the Team series is a monthly spotlight on staff across VisitScotland, EventScotland and the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships. In this feature, hear from our Senior Global Partnerships Development Manager, Christina Bruns, who works within our Intermediary Marketing team.
Christina at Toward, Argyll
I’m half Scottish and half German, and I've always loved connecting cultures.
I grew up in Singapore, New York and Germany before moving to the UK to do my degree at the University of Kent. I continued my studies at the University of Amsterdam and the University of Edinburgh. With my PhD in my pocket, and in need of an escape from the financial crisis, I got on a plane to find work in Dubai - where I ended up staying for 10 years!
I first worked in global brand and advertising research for Emirates Airline before moving on to market intelligence in the fashion and beauty luxury industry. I would generate brand insights across North Africa, Middle East and India markets.
Much of my research was focused on tourism, which sparked my interest to work at VisitBritain as their Country Manager for GCC and Turkey. During my time there I set up the first Western tourist board office in Saudi Arabia, which was a real highlight.
Back in Scotland, it has been a great pleasure connecting Scotland to the world for the past six years through my various international marketing roles.
I now live in Dunblane with my husband and our two young boys - who keep me on my toes!
Christina in Dubai
As Senior Global Partnerships Development Manager within the Intermediary Department, I ensure we're creating the right global opportunities and partnerships to allow us to strategically inform the travel trade who in turn sell their programmes to consumers worldwide. Our efforts ultimately help Scottish businesses internationalise.
I see it a bit like match making. How can we connect the right intermediaries with the right Scottish businesses in line with our strategic ambitions? What are the right platforms to promote the right products? We also need to consider our digital presence. We have our dedicated travel trade website, our travel trade LinkedIn page, enewsletters, and we also offer business development missions and our physical presence at trade events. This includes third party travel trade events, as well as our own.
And this is where our most recent travel trade event comes in. Our flagship travel trade event, VisitScotland Connect, does exactly that. This year, we brought over 250 buyers to Scotland to meet with 175 suppliers from 20 Scottish regions, our first such live event since 2019.
It’s such a pleasure hosting buyers from all around the world here in Scotland. From learning about their markets and requirements to getting to show off what Scotland has to offer. Taking buyers on fam trips is an absolute joy - seeing the buyers experiencing a product first hand to discussing how they plan to take that product back to their markets. It’s exciting to think how we're bringing Scotland to the world by hosting the world in Scotland.
VisitScotland Connect is a great collaborative effort. There are so many staff involved, it's a huge team effort. It’s fantastic to see all our efforts from different corners of the organisation culminating in one central project. Working cross-team with colleagues from different areas of expertise gives a real sense of cross-team organisational purpose and spirit.
My husband’s family is from Bute. It’s only a short island ferry hop over, but once you're there it feels like you are far-away from it all.
The beaches are sandy and pristine, and I love wandering around the small local museum.
But my favourite spot is a walk up to the beautiful setting amongst the ruins of St Blane’s Chapel at the southern tip of the island - the views stretch out over Arran. We love it so much we even named our first son after the island’s saint!