David would like to think that the purpose of Scattered Clouds is akin to that which Lord Reith set out for the BBC a long time ago; to inform, educate and entertain.
Proud to be Wiltshire born and bred, for the first time in many years David is now once again residing in one of southern England’s most appealing counties. Having decidedly poor eyesight David was fortunate to attend ‘special’ educational establishments in Exeter and then Hereford, before studying for his BA (Hons) in Economics at Manchester University.
Then, on what would have been Elvis’s 55th birthday, a long tradition of unearthing the stories that data-sets invariably hold within began, with David starting a lengthy stint working for the then London Transport to help the organisation gain a better understanding of the drivers of Bus and Underground demand.
After brief spells at both the Office for National Statistics and Department for Transport he was fortunate enough to land a prime role at VisitBritain in 2003, just after the merger of the British Tourist Authority and English Tourism Council.
This role soon evolved from Tourism Trends Manager into Head of Research, with ‘Evaluation’ being bolted on for good measure a year or two later.
David transformed the role into one which was much more industry-facing, willing to interpret, rather than just relay numbers to stakeholders, and introducing a raft of go-to outputs such as the monthly Foresight, fortnightly Tourism Trends tomes and a suite of Market Profiles describing Britain’s many inbound source markets.
During this period of his career he was regularly invited to address audiences at leading tourism sector events such as the Tourism Society’s annual Prospects gathering, the VAC Conference and TMI Convention, typically to take delegates through the latest tourism trend data in a way that would help them get to grips with what was happening, but also what might be driving these trends.
Between 2015 and 2019 David developed tools that Visit Jersey could deploy to help the tourist board (formed in 2015) make decisions from a more comprehensive evidence base. This included introducing an Exit Survey measuring the volume, value and characteristics of visits to the island, commissioning bespoke research to determine potential customer types, a forensic examination of aviation data to identify best prospect air routes, and building a framework that enabled the organisation to describe the outcomes that flow from its interventions.
David is not one for “spin”, preferring to tell it as it is, or rather how the data tells it to be – though always cognisant of the fact that we live in a complicated world and need to be pragmatic in our decision making.
He is now very much enjoying next chapter, by supporting forward-thinking destinations, organisations and businesses, and once again working with tourism professionals to help transform tourism sector data into insight.
And while David is definitely at home with numbers, he is quite keen on words too, so why not read his latest Blog?
If it is regular insights you are after then why not follow David on Twitter @ScattClouds
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