Deirdre Wells
Chief Executive
Go To Places
Deirdre Wells OBE was appointed as CEO of Go To Places in September 2018. She leads an award-winning team that is responsible for running two destination management organisations (Kent and Hertfordshire) and delivering a number of major EU, national and regional visitor economy projects. The team also provide consultancy to clients that to date have included local authorities, destination management organisations and tourism businesses in over 20 destinations across the UK.
Prior to her appointment to Go To Places, Deirdre was Chief Executive of UKinbound, representing nearly 400 UK inbound tourism businesses. During her tenure at UKinbound, Deirdre was a passionate advocate on behalf of the industry on a broad range of issues including Visas, Air Passenger Duty, skills and the impact of Brexit.
Prior to UKinbound Deirdre spent 20 years at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport working on a variety of high-profile projects and was instrumental in the delivery of the GREAT campaign – an ambitious and far-reaching marketing campaign promoting Britain as a great place to visit, study, work, invest, and do business.
Deirdre is Chair of English Tourism Week and sits on the Board of the Tourism Alliance. She is also a Trustee of The Historic Dockyard, Chatham