Yes, absolutely, I'm regularly contacted by the media to comment on tourism topics in the press - trends, challenges and opportunities, especially around family days out and visitor attractions, Gen Z and future travel and tourism trends and shifts as well as wider travel trends.  You can see just some of my media comments and articles right here.

Clients of Catherine's at The Plot include:

Invisible Cities

Bokun - a Tripadvisor company

Mersey Ferries

Strawberry Field

Imperial War Museum - HMS Belfast

Arival

365 Tours

TrainSplit (part of Raileasy)

Eureka Science+Discovery (part of Eureka! Museums)

Fotaflo

Manchester Museum & Whitworth Gallery

You can see a selection of case studies right here.

I have a conclusive round up of 2025 travel and tourism trade events around the world on my blog.  This ranges from conferences to more informal meetups, all with a focus on visitor attractions, experiences, travel tech and connectivity/distribution.

Smaller brands can succeed by:

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• Focusing on niche markets or underserved audiences. Don't lose sight of what makes you different and special.

• Offering highly personalised and intimate experiences. It is possible to deliver incredible surprise and delight on a budget - in turn driving social media sharing.

• Building strong community ties and authentic partnerships.

• Using social media and local SEO to maximize visibility on a smaller budget.

What are the top trends shaping tourism brand strategy in 2025?

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1. Personalised Experiences: Brands tailoring offerings based on individual preferences and predicting consumer behaviour

2. AI Integration: Using AI tools for targeted marketing and enhanced visitor interactions.

3. Immersive Technologies: Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) experiences.

4. Cultural Sustainability: Promoting and preserving local community, wealth and heritage.

5. Micro moments: small moments of joy or surprise and delight.

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You can find more trends on The Plot blog.

What makes your brand strategy consultant different/better/smarter/more indispensable?

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Because I focus exclusively on attractions, experiences, and tourism brands, you get someone with up to the minute knowledge of what's happening in the sector and how you can leverage that.. This niche expertise allows me to deliver tailored solutions that account for the specific challenges and opportunities that define how your customer buys.

With a mix of strategic insight and creative thinking, I help brands connect with their audience on an emotional level while delivering measurable results.

All of the tools that I use with clients are based on brand strategy fundamentals and putting the consumer at the heart of a brand.​

I've created these tools over my 20 year career and you'll find similarities as they are rooted in decades of user analysis and learning around marketing principals and consumer behaviour.

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• Brand roadmap - to join up and align the core parts of a proposition from the what and why to who and how.

• The messy middle - understanding the bit between what you do and what your customer actually wants. This is the really juicy bit where we squeeze out all the noise and fluff that's stopping you communicating effectively with your audience.

• Situational relevance - understanding what is really important to people in their current situation so you can connect with them - for example, families with teens in the winter or solo adults with a big disposable income.

• Trigger thinking - creating a point of difference between a struggle and a trigger - for example, we really should book a family day out this half term, vs it's Tommy's birthday and he wants to do a virtual reality experience.

Sustainability is a growing priority. To attract eco-conscious guests you need to go beyond the superficial statements that consumers are bombarded with every day:

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• Highlight green initiatives, like reducing waste or using renewable energy in a way that is fun and engaging, making sure to highlight how your visitors contribute to this.

• Partner with local communities to promote responsible tourism - make sure this is authentic by having clear goals to your plans and showcase the results and how these have created real local benefit.

• Communicate your values transparently through your website, social media, and on-site materials.

• Be honest where you are working hard but have a way to go - take people on that journey, showing your progress.

1. Leverage visual storytelling through high-quality short form video and imagery in your own brand style and personality.

2. Optimise for local SEO (and AI optimisation) and use targeted keywords, longtail search terms and geographical/near me searches - be sure to get expert search advice here in order to rank and compete.

3. Collaborate with travel/day out influencers and niche content creators - be sure to do the groundwork here to find partners that will amplify your message to the right audiences.

4. Create compelling itineraries or packages that simplify planning for visitors and show that you understand all of their considerations - this includes making sure your customer care is on point.

5. Use social proof like testimonials and user-generated content to build trust across your channels.

6. Consider partnerships with other local services that appeal to your target audience.

7. Use paid budget wisely and employ expert help if needed to ensure your messaging is clear and your targetting is detailed.

8. Ensure the customer journey from search to results is quick and easy, making sure that you test and learn regularly based on the experience a customer will have on and offline.

Yes I offer 1-1 support. My mentoring sessions are tailored to individuals or small teams looking to sharpen their skills in consumer brand strategy. These sessions can cover:

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• Brand development fundamentals.

• How to pivot or evolve your existing strategy.

• Building emotional connections with customers.

• Practical exercises and frameworks for real-world application.

• Defining specific strategic goals eg partnerships, messaging, channel strategy or new sectors.

• Continuity, cohesion and consistency.

A really good brand strategy for visitor attractions, experiences, and tourism brands should provide you with a comprehensive plan that defines how your business positions itself in the market, communicates its value, and connects with its target audience.

A brand consultant will advise on the following elements of a tourism or destination strategy:

• Aligning your vision (where you're going), mission (what you're doing) and values (how you're doing it).

• Identifying your useful (not unique) selling points (USPs).

• Crafting a compelling story and consistent messaging.

• Creating repetition in a way to helps your key messages stand out without getting boring.

• Understanding and leveraging customer personas.

• Designing touchpoints that enhance customer experience.

• Adding a little of the unexpected and capitalising on trends and opportunities.

For tourism and experience brands, this involves showcasing emotional, cultural, and sensory aspects to create a lasting impression outside the purchase journey, with the ultimate goal being to give people a reason to remain engaged for the long term.

My personal approach is to focus on what's happening in the messy middle - where your proposition gets confused.  Customers are judging you on every single brand touchpoint of the journey - and I help brands to figure out what's not quite matching up to their expectations, confusing them or meaning they end up booking something else.

I use other proprietary frameworks like situational relevance and trigger thinking - find out more with the brand strategy toolkit.

We're in a super crowded space with ever increasing competition. In the tourism and experience industry we have some epic marketers coming up with truly compelling content and stories to grab the attention of new audiences., A strong brand strategy helps you:

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1. Stand out in a saturated market.

2. Build trust and loyalty among travellers and visitors.

3. Attract your ideal audience through targeted marketing.

4. Align your offerings with consumer desires for unique, meaningful experiences.

5. Growing loyalty and advocacy.

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Finding the right audience involves:

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• Conducting market research to identify demographics, psychographics, and behaviours.

• Analysing visitor data from your attraction or competitors in a similar space.

• Crafting personas that represent different customer types.

• Using surveys, feedback, and online reviews to understand motivations.

• Modelling and predicting trends and opportunities.

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By tailoring your branding to your audience’s preferences, you can create a stronger emotional connection.  Of course, some of this will be trial and error as sadly it's rare to be able to entirely predict consumer behaviour.

This will vary from sector to sector as well as between different agencies and consultants.

As a rule you would expect something like this - this is also representative of my services on the whole.

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• Brand positioning or proposition: Defining your brand’s core message and identity.

• Consumer Insights: Understanding consumer behaviour and preferences.

• Aligning brand messaging with trends and opportunities

• Storytelling: Developing narratives that resonate with visitors to elevate your brand’s emotional appeal, memorability and shareability.

• Customer Journey Mapping: Understand and enhancing every touchpoint from discovery to post-visit engagement to strengthen loyalty and advocacy.

• Content Marketing: Creating a top-line marketing strategy and channel plan, with support for relevant team members to show how the brand strategy should be implemented and maintained.

• Visual Branding: Some brand strategists may also offer design services or contract this out to create or update a cohesive look and feel for logos, websites, and promotional materials.

I have a great guide to all of the best membership organisations and trade associations for UK visitor attractions and experiences, tourism businesses, OTAs and DMCs/DMOs over on the blog.