Rachel McQueen joins Destination Canada as new Managing Director

Destination Canada are delighted to introduce Rachel McQueen, who joined our team as the new Managing Director, UK on Monday November 6th. With a wealth of experience and a proven track record as a Senior Leader in our industry, Rachel is set to lead the Destination Canada UK team into an exciting new chapter.

Rachel comes with more than 20 years of experience in promoting destinations internationally both at a city level within Manchester, Cheshire, and Lancashire, and at a national level as part of a team working with colleagues at Visit England and Visit Britain. In Manchester, she developed an internationalization strategy with place promotion at its core, working with global brands such as Manchester City and Manchester United to grow the profile for the city in strategic markets.  

More recently, prior to Destination Canada, Rachel was the Chief Executive of Marketing Lancashire, a strategic place promotion agency working to promote Lancashire as a place to live, visit, study, work and invest. She significantly built on the momentum the county had been generating to raise its profile nationally and internationally.

In her role as Managing Director, Rachel will be focusing on leading and developing Destination Canada’s UK market strategy and tactical plans to optimize the strategic growth opportunity in the UK. Destination Canada are confident that her leadership will steer our team toward even greater success.

“We are excited to have her on board and look forward to achieving new milestones together”, said Maureen Riley, Vice President, International, Destination Canada

“I am delighted to be joining the team at Destination Canada. Their entire approach to regenerative tourism, to nurturing a hosting economy that benefits both Canadians and their guests, as well as their environment, is inspirational. Canada is an amazing country: vast, diverse, utterly stunning. It has so much to offer UK travelers, and I am really looking forward to working with our partners to make Canada the UK’s number one destination of choice” said  Rachel McQueen, Managing Director, UK, Destination Canada.