Kate Popham Email & Phone Number

Farnborough / London

Hotelplan UK encompasses travel brands Explore Worldwide, Inntravel, Inghams, Esprit Ski and Santa's Lapland. In this newly created role, I will work closely with the executive leadership team to enhance Hotelplan UK's position in the industry and report on its progress towards ambitious People and Planet targets

London

Platform 195 is a Retail Media Solutions and Marketing Agency that blends award-winning creativity, media, technology and data. The company delivers highly effective, integrated marketing campaigns across partnerships, brand and product within the travel industry and beyond. Within Platform 195, I lead on public relations for clean energy brand Egg (www.crackingenergy.com)

Egg (www.crackingenergy.com) launched in February 2022 and offers the UK's first subscription-based home chargepoint for electric vehicles (EVs), costing just £30 per month. The company also provides solar panels and batteries for homeowners looking to self-generate and store energy.

Since ending maternity leave in February 2022, I have been working in a freelance capacity across various projects and industries. I work with Platform 195 on an ongoing basis to handle PR activity for new clean energy brand Egg; and additionally am managing the enrichment programme for Brand USA Travel Week U.K. & Europe with Hills Balfour. Alongside these, I am undertaking ad hoc projects around PR, content and strategy for a number of start-ups within the travel and hospitality sectors

London, United Kingdom

Founded in 2013 by young entrepreneur Ritesh Agarwal, OYO is a global hospitality company that partners with independently-owned, small and mid-sized hotels to provide services including technology, revenue management, customer service and brand. I joined in OYO’s UK start-up phase, establishing the PR function, devising and implementing the strategy to introduce the company to media, hotel owners and potential employees as well as hospitality and technology business industry stakeholders and analysts. An initial focus on B2B PR helped the UK business grow from 16 hotels at the point of me joining to over 200 across the UK. B2C activity saw placements for OYO in mainstream media to raise the brand’s profile with consumers. I also handled internal communications to engage the growing team – and ensure clear and consistent communications through more than one phase of structural changes. Remaining part of the senior management team after a Covid-related downsize, I took on extra copywriting and operational responsibilities including communications for hotel owners, marcomms and social media for customers, and providing scripts and copy for the supply, customer services, revenue management and operations teams. Crisis communications was another key component of this role, dealing with everything from corporate reputation management to incident responses for individual properties.

I spent a few months between jobs undertaking freelance PR work. This included conducting travel PR training workshops for tour operators, working with the Competition and Markets Authority on a travel industry campaign, and looking after the PR for two tourist boards as an interim PR consultant at my former agency, Hills Balfour

London, United Kingdom

I was approached to fill a newly created Group Head of PR role at Western and Oriental Travel Ltd, which became part of ITC Travel Group two weeks later. As such, I took responsibility for developing and implementing the PR strategy for the group’s high-end tour operators as well as handling corporate PR during a period that included changes in ownership, the re-naming of brands and its starring role in a BBC TV series. The varied product portfolios of the tour operators – Inspiring Travel Company (formerly ITC Luxury Travel and Western & Oriental), Rainbow Tours, Regent Holidays, Villa Select and ITC Sports Travel – enabled me to develop stories with the consumer and trade media on a vast range of topics. This was an aspect I very much enjoyed as it allowed me to draw on my awareness of media and consumer trends; my interest in the cultural and industry factors that influence travel; and my personal travel experiences, having visited over 50 countries in all manner of ways. My role at ITC relied upon key qualities of self-motivation, creativity and diligence. As a one-person department, I cultivated a strong network of media, PR and travel industry contacts and I looked for initiatives that would support colleagues in other teams and meaningfully contribute to the culture and success of the business as a whole. My media relations resulted in hundreds of pieces of press coverage for ITC’s brands each year, generating sales as well as raising the profile of each tour operator – and our individual travel specialists - amongst consumers and the travel trade. My focus at ITC was on our luxury and experiential brands, offering everything from ranch holidays to round-the-world trips by private jet, intrepid safaris to spectator packages to major sporting events.

I joined Hills Balfour in October 2010, directing PR activity for destinations across North America, the Caribbean and Australia. Between 2011 and 2013, I became the dedicated PR contact for NYC & Company, New York City's tourism organisation, developing strategy and implementing activity with print, online and broadcast media. My key achievements for NYC & Company included the development of strategic messaging around the tenth anniversary of 9/11; diversifying coverage of New York City to increase visitation across the five boroughs; the launch of UK-specific social media channels; and ensuring the positive portrayal of lesser known aspects of the city, including within major broadcast productions such as The Apprentice, Made in Chelsea NYC, Holiday Hit Squad and Daybreak. As one of two PR directors at Hills Balfour, I co-managed the PR team of 18 and headed two account teams looking after Kenya Tourism Board, Destination Plymouth, Tourism Holdings Limited, PromPeru, Sheraton Hotels and other travel and tourism accounts. I was also heavily involved in social media, from advising and implementing campaigns and activities for clients to developing Hills Balfour's own strategy and training members of the team.

Account director at travel and tourism PR agency McCluskey International, working on the Jamaica Tourist Board and Tourism New South Wales accounts. Along with traditional media relations, this role involved planning and executing a brand launch event for Sydney's new 'Sydnicity' brand - complete with catering by a top NSW chef, Aussie surfers and Sydney drag queen.

Account director within a specialist travel and tourism PR and representation agency. Clients include the Discover Dominica Authority, the Montserrat Tourist Board, Rhodes Tourism Promotion Agency, Hong Kong Tourism Board, Tourism New Zealand, The Adventure Company, TrekAmerica, Artemis Travel and Slovenia Tourist Board.My work for Dominica, in particular, went beyond straight-forward PR, as I developed the overall tourism strategy for the destination; managed its presence at various trade and consumer shows and events; and launched a YouTube channel for the destination, conceptualizing and producing a number of destination videos which we filmed on island in 2010. As an early-adopter of social media, I set up and ran Saltmarsh PR's B2B twitter stream.

Publicity executive at a specialist arts and media PR company (now closed). Clients included The Times, The Sunday Times, The Wallace Collection, The Olivier Awards for London Theatre and various theatrical productions at The Old Vic, The Albery (now Noel Coward Theatre), The Kings Head Theatre Islington and regional and touring productions.

One-year role in the press office at Channel 4, promoting the channel's factual and sport programmes