Meet our Insight Manager

Tell us a bit about yourself

I was introduced to the tourism industry as a student. I worked in a number of roles including as a hotel receptionist, a volunteer for Sense Holidays for people who have complex disabilities and as a housekeeper at a 4-star hotel in Ocean City, Maryland, USA.

My first job after university was on a graduate program for a big five accountancy firm in Birmingham. I’ll always be grateful for the career start that offered me, as well as the professional training. But tourism called and I moved to Edinburgh to complete a Masters in Tourism Management. You can't beat the tourism industry for its warmth, creativity and the opportunities it offers.

A highlight of my career so far has been meeting King Charles (then Prince Charles) at a reception to celebrate the tourism industry at Holyrood Palace. I still have the invite with Buckingham Palace stamped on the envelope.

Outside of work, I’m a member of the Tartan Army and spend a lot of time travelling around Scotland with two children who play community football. Sadly I didn’t make it to Germany this year but the outpouring of love from Germany has been wonderful to read and will have a lasting impact.

Over the years I’ve also enjoyed volunteering and have liked meeting new people from all walks of life. I’m really interested in how tourism can grow opportunities via voluntary work as I see it being a great way to bring visitors and local communities together. I’m hoping to spend more time doing some voluntourism and looking at this within my own research work.

What is your current role at VisitScotland?

I’m an Insight Manager for VisitScotland and I’ve been involved in consumer segmentation models, employee research programmes and visitor survey work, to name a few.

The biggest attribute you can have in research is a curious mind. I like numbers but I really enjoy speaking to visitors to find out what motivates them and what drives them. Crafting the right questions to ask or designing the right research takes thought. Some visitor behaviour can be influenced by the unconscious mind or may be so ingrained in regular behaviour that a person cannot recall when asked. I enjoy using my expertise to probe behaviour, to challenge how we’re asking questions and how we can best explore new insight.

This year, we've published the Visitor Survey 2023. Can you tell us more about this important piece of work?

My favourite phrase in research is to talk about the jigsaw of research resources available to build a picture.

The Scotland Visitor Survey is one part of the puzzle. It may be described as ‘traditional research’, speaking to people face to face when they’re on holiday in Scotland and then following up via an online survey on their return home. My colleagues within the Insight team are involved in a far-ranging set of research, which complements the visitor survey, from national statistical monitors to social listening on social media platforms and data exploration.

The visitor survey speaks directly to people who’re here visiting Scotland and then gives us the opportunity to follow up with these visitors when they’ve returned home. We know that many visitors will visit more than one location and their experience will not just be reflective of one region.

We’re currently rolling out the insights across our VisitScotland.org website, making it available in different ways for our audiences to engage with. As well as looking at regional insights, we breakdown the insights by topics as businesses were keen to see the data in this way.

Do you have a favourite place in Scotland and where's next on your Scotland bucket list?

I can vividly recall getting off the train at Waverley Station on my first trip to Scotland and walking to meet friends. My first sight of Edinburgh Castle lit up in the dark literally took my breath away. Many years later, I no longer see Scotland through this first-time visitor lens, but I can absolutely recall the magic of that moment.

Falkirk is also very close to my heart. I was involved in the feasibility study for the Falkirk Wheel many years ago and since then I’ve watched Falkirk grow and welcome visitors from all over the world. During the visitor survey fieldwork at the Helix, I met a visitor from Ghana and was blown away that he said visiting the Kelpies was on his bucket list. And Scotland was an ideal meet up point for himself and his siblings living in the US.

And where next? As my kids grow up, I may get more time to do some volunteering breaks around Scotland.

View of Edinburgh Castle and Balmoral Hotel at night