North Wales Tourism consists of 12 non-executive directors who operate or manage tourism businesses. The sectors represented include hotels, farm guesthouses, hostels, self catering, touring caravan parks and visitor attractions. Board meetings are held 4 times per annum February, June, September and November.
NWT Directors
Jim Jones
Position: Managing Director
Ex-Welsh Guardsman Jim Jones is on a new mission to sell North Wales to the world. After leaving the forces he worked in local government - eventually heading up the tourism and communities department at Conwy Council.
Now he has taken the role as Managing Director of North Wales Tourism, the largest destination management organisation in Wales with a growing membership of more than 1,000. He is passionate about working in partnership to promote the region's spectacular landscape, heritage, culture, food and drink, accommodation along with the adventure and family attractions.
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Glenn Evans
Position: Vice - Chair
Glenn Evans, Managing Director Snowdonia Hospitality & Leisure Limited - Glenn returned to the family business after a successful career in London as a Solicitor specialising in medical negligence. Upon his return to Betws-y-Coed in 1997, Glenn initiated a refurbishment and development plan for the company’s flagship hotel The Royal Oak. By masterplanning the site the Royal Oak stood on the company doubled its room capacity and added retail areas and a stand alone F&B outlet making it the go-to destination venue in Betws-y-Coed. In 2001 the company acquired the Waterloo Hotel and added Leisure facilities to its portfolio.
Having grown up in the village Glenn understands the demands and adaptations seasonal businesses require to thrive and has worked steadfastly with the local Tourism Committee to attract year round trade for the village. Glenn has been a board member of Betws Ymlaen, a local community group who organise and hold national level events, whose aim is to leave a sustainable legacy for future generations. Glenn has also been involved with Arts & Business Cymru & a member of their directors' pool, alongside a host of community forums and boards to include the Betws-y-Coed and District Tourist Association and the Snowdonia Arts Festival.
In taking an inclusive approach to community and business and understanding the inherent needs of rural living, alongside his background in law, Glenn hopes to bring expertise and insight to the North Wales Tourism Board.
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Adrian Barsby
Position: Director
Having progressed from Porter to General Manager via traditional hotel training after several GM postings throughout England Adrian moved to Wales in 1994 to operate a private company with hotels throughout Great Britain. The company gained benchmark Investor in People status and won Employer of the Year 2002.
He chaired North Wales Tourism during transition from being part publicly funded to becoming a private sector company and has been active with Chamber of Commerce, IoD and regional economic development. Was Chair of Wales Tourism Alliance from October 2015 – September 2018 representing the interests of circa 6,000 Welsh Tourism enterprises to Welsh and UK Government.
Since early 1990’s Adrian has been a visiting lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, undertaken economic development projects for The British Council in Bulgaria and delivered numerous workshops and seminars on behalf of an arm of The Savoy Trust throughout former Soviet Bloc countries. From 2015 has been an Associate Lecturer at MMU specialising in Strategic Tourism Management, International Marketing, Global Tourism Development and Degree Apprenticeship in Operations Management.
Adrian set up Barsby Associates Ltd in 2007 a company that specialises in business support for tourism and hospitality. The company has mentored over 200 enterprises and helped turnaround companies of all sizes throughout the UK. Winning contracts with WRAP and RDP projects in North East Wales. He has experience of working with a broad range of enterprises having mentored / coached owners of; Holiday Cottages, Luxury Caravan and Leisure Parks, Golf Courses, Pubs, Restaurants, Attractions, Holiday & Retail Villages, Vintage Vehicle Rental, Branded Hotels, Hotel Groups, Luxury Hotels, regional and national tourism bodies.
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Ruth Higgin
Position: Director
Ruth Higgin, Ty Mawr Tearooms B&B, Llanddeiniolen – I have been in the hospitality industry for many years. For the last 8 years I have run a B & B Tearooms/Restaurant with my husband on the edge of Snowdonia.
Having lived in North Wales for 37 years, I realise the importance of tourism and how important growth and development is paramount to the community and us as business owners.
In previous years I ran a food oriented Pub and a Catering Company, with a customers like MBNA, M & SFS, Rolls Royce and BMW, then in Sales and Marketing for an International FMCG Company.
In my leisure time (winter time) I enjoy watercolour painting and walking our Labradors in the mountains and by the sea.
If given the pleasure of being elected as a director of North Wales Tourism, I look forward to assisting my peers in driving forward the message of bring more people to one of the most beautiful parts of the world.
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Frankie Hobro
Position: Director
Frankie Hobro is the Owner and Director of Anglesey Sea Zoo & Marine Resource Centre and she has always been a passionate advocate for conservation and sustainability. Frankie gained years of experience working on hands-on conservation projects with critically endangered species across the globe, often in challenging and isolated conditions, in both terrestrial and marine environments, including island nature reserve and endangered species management and establishing long-term sustainable ecotourism projects.
Frankie is specialised in all aspects of eco-tourism, having filled many roles across the spectrum from exclusive private islands to not-for-profit nature reserves, working with elite and high profile guests in a five star environment, managing interactive conservation projects and visitor expectations, creating bespoke ecotourism tours and optimising guest experiences.
Having spent a large amount of her childhood in North Wales and on Anglesey, Frankie returned to do postgraduate studies at Bangor University School of Ocean Sciences in 2001, then she returned and settled on Anglesey when she bought the Anglesey Sea Zoo in 2007, becoming the sole Owner and Director of the business in 2013.
Since purchasing the business Frankie has transformed it into the only exclusively British aquarium, housing only native species with an entirely natural sea water supply directly from the Menai Strait and specialising in the captive breeding of endangered native species for reintroduction into the wild. As well as being a major tourist attraction and local employer, the Anglesey Sea Zoo is an essential community and research hub, uniquely focussing on sustainability, education, marine conservation and breeding programmes for endangered native species such as seahorses and lobsters.
Frankie has set up successful bilingual education and outreach programmes at the Sea Zoo and a voluntary marine animal rescue centre, with the capacity to rescue and rehabilitate all kinds of stranded or injured marine animals, as well as a non-profit-making beach clean group which has been running for over a decade in collaboration with Keep Wales Tidy and the Marine Conservation Society.
Frankie is a Role Model and Inspirational Speaker for Big Ideas Wales, promoting entrepreneurship and skills-based learning, particularly promoting STEM and encouraging more women to follow careers in science and business, whilst also constantly working on increasing the sustainability of the business and local community involvement in marine based activities and projects. Frankie is also actively involved in promoting relations and links between North Wales and Japan following a visit to Japan in November 2018.
As well as gaining numerous environmental awards and accreditations, in July 2019 Frankie was honoured with the extremely prestigious award of Bangor University Alumnus of the Year. She continues to strive to optimise tourism and hospitality revenue through maximum sustainability and environmental awareness with the ambition of the Welsh Tourism sector becoming a global leader in sustainable ecotourism.
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Marc Viercant
Position: Director
Marc Viercant is co-owner of The Cae Mor Hotel in Llandudno with his wife Sheryl. The hotel has over the past 5 years received a number of awards and recognition in Food, Service and Hospitality, including Best Seafood Restaurant in North Wales, an AA rosette for the past 3 years and runner up in several National Food Awards. Before purchasing The Cae Mor Hotel they owned and operated another hotel in Llandudno for 12 years.
Prior to moving to Llandudno, Marc had a well-established career as an hotel General Manager across the UK for several major hotel groups including, Principal Hotels, Thistle hotels and Jarvis Hotels as well as a number of privately owned hotels including Weetwood Hall owned by the University of Leeds and the former Kent based Marston Hotels Group. His career included new build openings, hotel acquisitions, major refurbishments and rebranding as well as being involved in several hotel associations across the UK.
His later career saw him returning to Kent to the privately owned Marston Hotel Group where he ran the multi award winning flagship group hotel, The Hythe Imperial Hotel before the group was sold to Q Hotels. During his time in Kent he worked alongside the Kent Ambassadors with Kent County Council focusing on the 2012 Olympics and Tourism Development in Education and welcomes the opportunity to develop our region and industry both locally and nationally.
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Nicky Williamson
Position: Director
Nicky owns the West Arms in Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog, together with her husband Mark.
She grew up in North Wales before embarking on a varied career with international hospitality companies, both in the UK and globally and has now returned home to North Wales to run ‘a place of their own’.
For the most part of her career she has worked for InterContinental Hotels & Resorts and Starwood Hotels & Resorts (now Marriott International) in global leadership roles and with overall responsibility for Europe, Africa and Middle East. Her roles covered specialisms including Hotel operations, Brand development, development of Emerging Markets and Leadership Development.
Nicky is passionate about hospitality and encouraging more people into the industry, reflected in her development of international graduate management programmes and in her role lecturing BA and Masters students at Glion Institute of Hospitality.
Alongside The West Arms, Nicky continues to offer consultancy, primarily to support businesses through Coaching, Training and Employer Brand development.
‘North Wales is an incredible region with so much to offer beit Coastline, Mountains, Castles, hidden valleys and of course the adventure tourism all of which is simply world class. This is being recognised more and more in recent years. We still have much work to do as we navigate some of the biggest challenges we, as a sector have ever faced. I am delighted to be part of this journey to recognising North Wales Tourism alongside the best in the world.’
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Laura Jones
Position: Director
Laura Jones, Marketing Manager at Lyons Holiday Park - Laura has a huge passion for the leisure and tourism industry here in North Wales, from the epic natural landscape, mixed with the distinctive Welsh culture including its own language, then adding in the abundance of varied businesses, from food and drink, accommodation, along with the adventure and family attractions, North Wales makes for an authentic and truly memorable experience for people of all ages.
Laura believes that with her experience of development, promotion and relationship building, along with her passion that she could really add a valuable contribution to the North Wales Tourism Board.
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Tanya Keith
Position: Director
Tanya has been working at Bangor University over the past 6 years since returning from employment in London, New York and Hampshire. Tanya has a background of facility and property management and customer service delivery roles over the past 23 years working for such organisations in central London as Cluttons, Savilles and Chesterton Lalonde where she developed The Executive Rental Service which offered a “soft landings” programme for overseas executives into the UK to assist with all aspects of relocation. New York then followed with a Realtor Licence to rent/sell lofts in the Metropolitan New York area of the United States.
Tanya returned to North Wales with her family where for the past 3 years she was appointed Business Services Manager at Technium CAST, Bangor a high tech 60,000 sq ft facility which incubates early stage IT focussed starts ups and is part of an economic regeneration WEFO funded project. Other responsibility was the development of the set up and delivery of a conference and event management programme at CAST – thus drawing business tourism into the region. This particular facility had a footfall of visitors in the region of 1500 per month, many from all over the country and many of whom brought with them revenue opportunities for the local hotels in the area.
Tanya since joined the team at the Bangor Business School, Management Centre as Director of Events and Venue in June 2008 to develop and promote the facility as venue for training, workshops, conferences and events with the added benefit of onsite overnight guest accommodation. The facility has since achieved 4* grading for its accommodation and attained Gold Business Class standard as a business centre. Working very closely with WAG and the various local Councils, The Centre has gained reputation as a business hub in the area supporting not only local business networks but also attracting visitors both nationally and internationally into Bangor and surrounding area.
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Yvonne Jackson
Position: Director
Yvonne Jackson as CEO of Condor Hotels Ltd is a ‘hands on’ business consultant specialising in the Hotel & Leisure Industry. During her highly successful thirty year career Yvonne has held many significant senior roles including General Manager of 4 star de-luxe Hotels with Q Hotels, Hilton Hotels and DeVere Hotels, CEO Yvonne Jackson Conference and Hotels Booking Agency, an independent Hotel Owner Operator, Operations Director and Interim CEO Resident Hotels, together with a number of presently held Non Exec. and Managing Director roles within the hotel, golf, hospitality and leisure industry. Yvonne’s principal focus is on developing and steering leadership teams through transformational change, improving operation effectiveness and efficiency, introducing, and installing the latest technology, marketing and media platforms and necessary legislative compliance. Above all focus is on maximising a business potential and improving bottom line performance. A great believer in networking, Yvonne has built a strong network of collaborative relationships throughout the UK and International business world – including Bankers, Entrepreneurs, Developers, Marketeers, Independent and Group Hoteliers and Leisure Operators.
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Andrew Plimmer
Position: Director
2023 marks my 30th year in hospitality, 27 years as a hotelier having owned an operated my own hotel (in North Wales) as well as running 2 small hotel companies. Prior to this I worked for a travel management company covering all aspects of business travel and this is where I originally developed my interest in the hotel trade.
For the last 4 years I have been responsible for sales and business development of the Everbright Hotel Group who now employ a growing number of staff in 4 North Wales properties with an additional 2 to bring online in the future. Hospitality complements my personality because it’s both an emotional and a physical product. North Wales also suits me because I see the huge potential the area offers and I’m keen to develop new relationships that benefit this most wonderful location. Like others I see it as the “adventure capital” of Wales and I’d like to do more to work towards benefiting everyone everywhere involved in the tourism business in this area. The knock on business that comes as a consequence of guests visiting hotels makes me realise that it is the area that needs to be constantly promoted and if I / we are not promoting then more than likely our competitors are – and this works well in my proactive frame of mind.
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Sara McKee
Position: Director
Sara McKee is the founder of Caernarfon’s distinctive yellow gallery, Life: Full Colour. An entrepreneur, social reformer and marketer, Sara founded the gallery in 2020 to bring together her extensive commercial experience with her passion for art history. Since opening Life: Full Colour, Sara has nurtured and promoted a stable of Welsh artists, delivered art workshops for the community, established an international exchange programme with the New York Studio School, and will soon be opening a new art atelier and members’ bar, Y Segontiwm. It’s all part of her dream to create the North Wales version of the St Ives artists’ colony.
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Lucy Miller
Position: Advisor
Having spent every summer of her childhood in Trearddur Bay and then every summer of her children’s childhoods in Church Bay, it seemed only right that a permanent move to Anglesey should be made. Lucy and John Miller moved to Anglesey in April 2013 with a view to starting a tourism business after completing lengthy research in this field and noting a significant gap in the market.
She and her husband chose to play their part in filling this gap by creating a glamping business, providing high specification pods with their own bathrooms. This has been so successful that in their first year of trading (2015) they were recognised as being one of the top 10 glamping sites in Wales by Welsh Coastal Life and in their second, top 15 self-catering in Wales by the same company – there is an accreditation for this year but it is not yet published yet. Lucy believes it is important to integrate within the country in which you live and has been learning Welsh since September 2016.
Before moving to Anglesey, Lucy worked successfully in enterprise education; educating, encouraging and supporting young entrepreneurs with Young Enterprise as Director of Programmes and Sales and the Peter Jones Enterprise Academy. She feels very strongly that these skills should be shared and the benefit of her experience be used to aid start-ups in tourism, which is one of North Wales’ biggest income streams. As an ex Market Researcher for major PLCs including Dixons and Cape Industries, Lucy is skilled at interpreting numbers and believes these skills would be of significant help to North Wales Tourism in helping identify where improvements could be made in raising the profile and encouraging new start-ups in this area if elected as a Director.
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