‘There is a pent-up demand to visit the UK’

As CEO of Visitbritain and Visitengland, Sally Balcombe is responsible for attracting overseas visitors to Britain and also encouraging our taste for staycations.

Iwas raised on a huge amount of international travel. My dad worked as a structural engineer, building bridges, hospitals and oil rigs across South America and the Caribbean, so we lived abroad until I was 16. I came back to England to study at Cambridge and became a teacher. I had always wanted to teach, but after my first year, I realised it wasn’t for me.

I fell into the travel industry by mistake. I was doing odd jobs when I responded to an advert for a ski company. They were looking for new people to help grow their business and I loved skiing. Before long, I was running a small business of three people. I loved the variety; you can be finding new customers one day and troubleshooting transport cancellations the next. After working at a few different tour operators, I ended up at British Airways, where I stayed for a decade, climbing the ranks until I became managing director of its global inbound business, meaning I was responsible for attracting more tourists to the UK.

While working at BA in the late 1990s, I put my hand up to manage a big online project, which involved creating holiday packages. That was a huge turning point: my knowledge of the digital world has been super-helpful to my career since. After holding senior roles at TUI and

Opodo, I wanted to have more freedom, so I stopped working full time in 2009 and began sitting on boards for different companies. I joined the board of Visitbritain, the official tourism organisation for Great Britain, in 2013. I love Britain. Growing up abroad gives you an appreciation for all Britain has to offer – the vibrant cities, sandy beaches and idyllic countryside. In 2014, the CEO left, so I applied and got the job.

My role involves encouraging international tourists to come to Britain, focusing on marketing and communicating with our teams around the world. I’m also responsible for encouraging Brits to holiday here.

When lockdown hit, we focused all our energies into supporting businesses in Britain. We kept the industry informed about developments, offered guidance on how to use government schemes and started planning for what the industry could do when we opened up again. We brought in the We’re Good To Go mark that businesses could use to show they were following Covid safety guidelines.

In the short-term, our focus is on domestic travel. The pandemic has made people reassess and look at taking holidays within the UK. There’s also a lot of pent-up demand to visit the UK and, thanks to our vaccination programme and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee next year, I hope we will see a tourism boom.

As much as I love holidaying at home, I can’t wait to travel again with my husband, David, and sons, Alexander, 27, and Dominic, 23. Exploring new places is how we develop and become less insular. Travel is life-enhancing and life-affirming, and we all need that more than ever.

Go to visitbritain.org for more info

Exploring new places is how we develop and become less insular