Barbara Samoilenko

I manage the Continental European office of Visit Victoria and all its functions including: - Tourism marketing of the Australian state of Victoria and its main city Melbourne to consumers, travel trade and media. - B2B and B2C strategy planning for Continental Europe - Consumer marketing and PR - Travel trade relations, training and events - Operational management of the Continental European office

Establishing Sydney and NSW's first representation in Germany and France. Developed annual business plan and strategy for Germany and France, established network of partners (including airlines, tour operators, OTA's and Tourism Australia), implemented consumer campaigns as well as gap analysis and destination product development in collaboration with tour operators, supported by trade training.

RAK TDA is the tourist board for the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah in the UAE. I established the new marketing team and function including: a new marketing strategy, the global destination brand and brand assets, the marketing channels and agency network as well as the departmental KPI’s and budget. A key challenge was to roll-out the brand to meet booking patterns and trade deadlines for 2016. I achieved this successfully for WTM'15 and had campaigns live in Europe in January 2016.

Initially joined as Marketing Manager Northern Europe and then moved into Europe role. Team management of 14 staff across two teams. European strategy development and implementation. Digital campaign management including UX, analytics and multi-lingual channel management. Global agency management. International creative campaign development.

I worked as the tourism marketing specialist with three consultancies on bid preparation and pitching as well as managing research and making high-level marketing recommendations for three projects. - Economic Impact Assessment for Hexham Abbey Visitor Center - Visitor Information Network Revenue Business Model Study for the County of Northumberland - Global destination brand research, WTO Brand Handbook

Set up and managed the marketing department of the new Tourist Board for the county of Northumberland. Team recruitment and management Strategy development and implementation Destination brand development and roll-out Establishing all marketing channels and collateral from scratch Extensive industry liaison (about 1000 micro-businesses)

• Destination marketing of Bristol • Team management: 13 staff across three teams - Marketing and PR: consumer and travel trade marketing and PR activities and channels - Visitor Information Centre: operation of one VIC, led information provision study - Commercial Services: delivering membership benefits, corporate communications The role included the repositioning of Bristol from a predominantly business hub to a mixed business and leisure hub, following extensive urban regeneration.

• Relationship management of international travel trade clients • Business development: B2B marketing, new lead generation • Implementation of client requirements via operational teams • New tour operator product development • Team Management: 1 Executive • Budget management • Reporting: company internal and to clients

I started in the Destination Management Team, where I initially worked on the operational side booking and managing tours for my key accounts. I later managed this area for about four years. Starting my career at a DMC has given me a thorough understanding and appreciation of the tourism industry, the travel trade business cycles, tourism stakeholders and their business needs.

Prior to and whilst at university, I used my term holidays to gain work experience. This included: • Speyerer Tagespost, daily newspaper in Speyer, Germany (1992) • Bloomberg Business News, London and Frankfurt offices (1993) • German language newspaper for ethnic Germans, Almaty in Kazakhstan (1994) • Rugo Kommunikation PR Agency, Bonn in Germany (1995) • Focus Central Asia, monthly magazine, London (1995 - 1997)

Post-Soviet Studies: politics and economics of transition economies. MA thesis: The Geopolitics of Oil and Gas in Central Asia (distinction)

Politics with Philosophy. Vordiplom at Mainz, then move to University of Bonn.