After graduating with a 1st Class Masters in Public Policy, Kurt was employed by the Department of Conservation and then the New Zealand Tourist Board, working on national and regional tourism strategy. He moved to Britain in 1997 to work for VisitBritain as Head of Strategic Planning with responsibility for Policy, Strategy, Business Planning and Marketing Evaluation.
Kurt left VisitBritain in 2004 to become the Director of the Tourism Alliance, an umbrella trade association for the tourism and hospitality sector that comprises over 65 industry associations that together represent almost 200,000 UK businesses. The core role of the Tourism Alliance is to lobby Government on issues that support the development of the UK tourism industry. He is a member of several Government advisory groups including the Tourism Industry Council and HMRC’s SMEOF, and has written VisitEngland’s “Pink Book” on accommodation legislation since 1999. He is a Fellow of the Tourism Management Institute and the Association of Tourism in Higher Education
In this interview, Kurt discusses how the Covid pandemic has affected visitor flows and his concerns around lack of resources and management for tourism areas negatively impacting the industry,