VisitBritain has announced that Joss Croft will return to London as head of business visits and events from 5 June.

He will lead the positioning and marketing of Britain as the destination of choice for all business travel and events.

Making the appointment, director of commercial and marketing services Kenny Boyle says:

“Business travel is a crucial aspect of VisitBritain’s marketing strategies. The sector represents almost a third of the £14 billion that our international visitors spend here every year and it looks set to continue to grow.

That VisitBritain has a strong team in place is particularly important, as increasing numbers of major businesses and associations want to book now to hold events and large-scale meetings in and around 2012.

“Joss's commercial experience with global organisations such as Disney, coupled with his invaluable knowledge of the public sector brought from Visit London and his years with VisitBritain, will make him an invaluable addition to the Business Visits and Events team.”

As manager of VisitBritain's presence in Spain and Portugal, Joss is currently responsible for 13 staff and has helped increase Spain's position from sixth to fifth most important source market for visits to Britain.

In his new role, he will lead the high-achieving Business Visits and Events team in London and specialist staff in VisitBritain's international markets with responsibility for marketing Britain as a business destination. In addition, through MeetEngland, he will oversee the marketing of England for the UK’s business travellers. 

Joss adds: “After a number of years managing our offices in Spain and Portugal, I am looking forward to returning to the UK to take up this challenging role. Barcelona hosts the global meetings and incentive exhibition, EIBTM, where every year 5,500 visitors search for the next big business destination. I'll be aiming to bring many more of them to Britain in the coming years. »

“It's been an incredible and very rewarding few years here. I’m particularly proud that we have helped increase the number of Spanish visits so that it has risen from sixth to fifth place in the source market ‘league table’.”

Joss succeeds Jeremy Brinkworth, who is now General Manager for Quality.