SECTOR FOCUS TOURISM By Ged Henderson
A TOWERING AMBITION
Ask Kate Shane what she does for a living and she replies, “I get paid to make people smile”.
In truth, her current role as managing director of Blackpool Tourism Limited is so much more than that. She has been tasked with leading the resort’s vitally important tourism industry into a new era.
It is a role she is exceptionally well qualified for. For almost 40 years Kate has built her career in Blackpool’s tourism industry – from her early days at First Leisure Corporation to heading up Merlin Entertainments’ cluster of attractions in the resort as regional director.
They included the iconic Tower with its circus, ballroom and The Dungeons, as well as Sea Life Blackpool, Madame Tussauds and a number of other major visitor experiences on the Golden Mile, which together attract more than two million visitors annually.
The 56-year-old left that post last summer to become managing director of Blackpool Council’s leisure portfolio. And now she is back at the Tower after the council took over its management from Merlin in June this year.
As well as the Tower, Blackpool Tourism Limited now has a high- profile leisure portfolio that includes Madame Tussauds, Sandcastle Waterpark and the town’s Showtown Museum.
Heading the council’s arms- length company, Kate has also been tasked with delivering the ‘One Blackpool’ strategic vision for the resort, creating a collaborative culture across the tourism sector, bringing together public and private sector leaders.
She sees that vision as vitally important to the future wellbeing of the resort and believes the barriers are now down when it comes to leisure businesses that may have been fierce rivals in the past.
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