Associates
Dr Roger Carter MBE, BSc, PhD, FTS, MTMI
Since establishing TEAM in 1997, Roger Carter has undertaken consultancy work in a wide range of areas, including tourism strategy and business planning, planning and implementing e-business, visitor services re-engineering and conference development. This has included work for international clients, such as the World Tourism Organization, the European Travel Commission, the Irish Tourist Board, Enterprise Estonia, the Seychelles Tourism Marketing Authority and Western Cape Tourism Board (South Africa), and UK clients such as the British Tourist Authority, the English, Scottish and Wales Tourist Boards, and Scottish Enterprise. He was Expert Advisor to the Tourism Inquiry of the Scottish Parliament in 2003.
Prior to establishing TEAM, Roger was involved in tourism destination management for nearly 30 years, including 15 years at CEO level, running two of the most successful Tourist Boards in Britain.
In 1990, Roger was appointed to set up and run the Edinburgh Tourist Board. As Chief Executive, he was responsible for the strategic development of the organisation, for business planning and for overseeing all aspects of the Board's operations, including the Edinburgh Convention Bureau, leisure tourism marketing, visitor services and research.
Through carefully targeted leisure and conference marketing activity, Edinburgh's hotel occupancy figures increased from average annual room occupancy of 59% in 1991 to 76% in 1996, with the highest rates of growth in the first and last quarters of the year. Standards of visitor service were improved markedly and the company, with support from its Partners, was particularly innovative in its approach to information technology and in its research programme. During its five years of operation (until it was subsumed within a wider regional organisation), the Edinburgh Tourist Board doubled its budget, largely from commercial sources, and achieved a position of financial strength.
From 1982 to 1990, Roger was Director (CEO) of the Heart of England Tourist Board where he increased the budget from £250k to £1.5m and membership from 850 to nearly 2,300. The Board developed a reputation for successful innovation in many aspects of tourism marketing and planning. Before that, he was Director of Research and Planning at the Scottish Tourist Board, where he designed and managed a highly innovative programme of tourism research and planning studies, many undertaken in co-operation with other agencies.
Together with TEAM Associates, Roger co-authored two World Tourism Organisation Business Council publications, 'Marketing Tourism Destinations Online', published in 1999; and 'E-Business for Tourism - Practical Guidelines for Tourism Destinations and Businesses', published in October, 2001. Since publication of the earlier report he has spoken regularly at WTO conferences and seminars - in South America, Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
Roger's special interest in the use of information technology by tourism organisations originated in the mid-1980s. He initiated a strategic approach to the use of IT in England and subsequently in Scotland. From 1994-96, he chaired the Common Interest Groups of two major European IT Projects. In addition, he chaired the IT Working Group of the Federation of European Cities' Tourist Offices. In 1998/99, he was a partner in the KNITE consortium, which assisted the European Commission in determining its policy towards IT in tourism. For four years, he was a Vice-President of the International Federation for IT and Travel & Tourism.
Roger has a BSc in Geography from the University of Birmingham and a PhD from the University of Strathclyde.
Key areas of expertise
Tourism strategy and destination development planning; e-Business, including e-marketing; Business planning, including marketing planning; Conference marketing and development; Visitor services re-engineering/ commercialisation; Research design + research management and delivery.