A raft of travel industry heavyweights have been named in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List for 2015.
Former Virgin Holidays managing director Amanda Wills, Hilton Worldwide UK boss Simon Vincent, former VisitBritain chief executive Sandie Dawe and Visit Scotland chairman Michael Brian Cantlay have all been honoured.
Wills (pictured), who left Virgin Holidays in May, has been awarded a CBE for her services to the British travel industry and to charity.
Wills, currently chairman of private online members club Urbanologie, said: “This has come as a very unexpected and wonderful surprise. I take great joy and pride in both my professional and charity work and to be recognised in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list is just amazing.”
She has more than two decades’ experience in the travel industry after starting her career in 1987 at Airtours, where she became the first female board director of a global travel company. Wills is a board member of Breast Cancer Campaign’s Unlock the Cure appeal and a trustee of the charity Kids’ Out.
Vincent, executive vice-president and president, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) of Hilton Worldwide, has been awarded an OBE for services to the hospitality industry.
Vincent has also enjoyed a long career in the travel industry, including 13 years at Thomas Cook, where he rose to the rank of chief operating officer.
Since joining Hilton from online travel agency Opodo in 2007, Vincent has overseen the number of hotels in Europe, Middle East and Africa double under the Conrad, Waldorf Astoria, Curio, Canopy, Hilton, DoubleTree by Hilton, Hilton Garden Inn and Hampton by Hilton brands.
Vincent sits on the Hilton Worldwide global executive committee and is co-chair of the UK Tourism Council, alongside the tourism minister, Helen Grant, and minister for skills and enterprise, Matthew Hancock.
Dawe, who spent more than five years at the helm of Visit Britain as chief executive until July 2014, has been awarded a CBE for services to tourism. She received an MBE in 2008 and is a consultant in the tourism industry and a director of London & Partners. She is currently working as a consultant to Travel Weekly‘s sister title travelGBI.
VisitScotland chairman Michael Cantlay, also a board member of VisitBritain, has been awarded an OBE for services to tourism and hospitality in Scotland.
An MBE has also been awarded to Stewart Spence, owner of Marcliffe hotel and spa, Aberdeen’s only property to hold five stars from VisitScotland. Honoured for his services to the Scottish tourism industry, he launched the Marcliffe in 1993, when it was officially opened by the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.