Name: Sharron Scott
Job Title: Director of Sales and Commercial Partnerships
Company: Go Ape
Founder Member Since: 2020
I have always known how important having the right team is but the pandemic brought this to the fore. The team has been the reason we have managed to gain back traction and also deliver great experiences. I have never been prouder or excited to see what the future will bring!
Tell us a bit about your role and how it supports the business?
With my teams, I personally oversee the growth in group revenues sites (schools and corporates) across our UK sites and all Commercial Partnerships for Go Ape incorporating Brand, Affiliate Marketing, Third Party Resellers, Sponsorship, Domestic and Overseas Travel.
What has been your career highlight to date?
Watching individuals grow within the team and seeing them either grow within the business or move on with their careers.
Also winning the school travel awards 4 years in a row with the last 2 years achieving the Best UK Destination/Attraction which was both exciting but also a great acknowledgment from teachers on how they value our school programme here for their students.
What is the best piece of advice you have ever been given?
Follow your own path and believe in yourself.
If you were not working in this sector, what other industry would you have pursued a career in?
I fell into sales by mistake and not necessarily by design but if I had followed a different path then I think I would have liked to have been a teacher as I like making a difference and helping broaden people’s horizons.
What are the emerging trends within your sector and have these changed since Covid-19?
I think an emerging trend is people rediscovering the love of the outdoors.
What is coming up for your company in the next 12/18 months?
We are continuing to evolve as a business for both our employees and customers which will make the next 12 months exciting but also ensure that we secure our place in the adventure space as a choice for customers and current and future employees.
As an association what one thing do you think we have done that has made a real difference to our members during the crisis?
I think personally we have been kept well informed and also known that if we have a question or concern there is a route to take these too which is what you would like to receive as part of the association.
Covid-19 has had a huge impact on our industry, what is the one thing that you have learnt personally or professionally during this time?
I think not to take anything for granted as our customer base dropped off a cliff overnight and still nearly 2 years on has not fully recovered to pre pandemic levels regarding group revenues.
You need to be listening to your customer base and reassessing your products and procedures and how you can react and be more flexible to address concerns and create opportunity. For us, this has meant that we have delivered full day options for our education groups, which has meant that we have had to create additional solutions to market which has been exciting and forced us as a business to evolve.
I have always known how important having the right team is but the pandemic brought this to the fore. The team has been the reason we have managed to gain back traction and also deliver great experiences, although at times this has been challenging at no time have they complained but been solution focused. I have never been prouder or excited to see what the future will bring.
What are your crystal ball forecasts for the period ahead and how quickly do you think your business can recover from the pandemic?
I think the next 12-18 months will be interesting and potentially challenging as we still have the uncertainty of the pandemic looming, and we are not sure how this will potentially present itself moving forward as our customers react around changes and this is noticeable quite quickly. This could potentially affect our customers domestically with leisure spend being potentially affected with living costs increasing for families and internationally for travel restrictions changing.
However, for groups I feel that the isolation for homeworkers and challenges this presents to businesses to reconnect teams and also within the education sector for education catch up they will continue to strive to continue to seek new opportunities to help aid mental health and wellbeing and resocialise.
Find out more about BETA member Go Ape here
Published 04 October 2021
