Heads In Beds - Gary Lowthian

A little bit of background . . . .

I hail from the Scottish Borders and after doing a degree in Edinburgh and MA in Preston, I started my first 'real' job at VisitScotland in the international marketing team. While studying I had several jobs, where I learned a lot, but didn't realise it at the time! Most useful in retrospect, were roles with City of Edinburgh Council [Leisure services] and Scottish and Newcastle.

Subsequently I moved to the Lake District where I was fortunate enough to work under Ian Stephens at Cumbria Tourism [then Cumbria Tourist Board]. The role was 'market development' with the aim of encouraging priority market segments to the region.

I was then tempted by a Marketing Manager position within another great 'destination' brand, namely 'Yorkshire'. The move to York was not a great hardship, as it's a great city and is still my home. During my time at Cumbria and Yorkshire Tourist Board's I completed the Institute of Direct Marketing PG diploma in Direct Marketing and the Chartered Institute of Marketing eMarketing award.

After a couple of years I decided to give in to a nagging desire to work for myself. In 2002, I launched Strategic Tourism, which within six months became a limited company. My focus was on helping tourism businesses to market themselves more effectively. After a year or so, it was clear that most businesses I was working with had broader needs, so I set about developing my own skills in terms of all things financial, human resource, information technology and product development.

I've been lucky enough to have worked with some great people and in some great areas. I've also extended my remit a little through launching a second business in 2005 with Bob Carter, namely Customer Maze Ltd, which offers mystery shopping and research services to the hospitality sector.

Personal interests? Well I play guitar and am just getting into photography. As you'd expect I'm a keen traveller from camping to 5 star luxury and sometimes I even get there by motorbike [hence the dodgy gear in one of the pictures above].