Meet our Team

WST has been operating tours for over 35 years with over 400 years' combined experience in the educational visits market. This experience is combined with a strong set of values focusing on 'do the right thing'.

We take a long term view to work with our customers to do the right thing, particularly at times of concern and uncertainty. Take a look at one example of how WST chose to ‘do the right thing’ when West Lowland Battalion Cadets were faced with cancelling their trip following terrorist attacks in Belgium.

Pre-booking

Mo Ogden
Head of Group Sales

Mo has been working with schools and colleges for over 25 years organising educational travel and is fully committed to ensuring your tour meets your needs and requirements.

Nici Smith
Sales Team Leader

Nici has been arranging educational tours for 15 years. Nici has extensive experience in planning educational tours and works with the Sales team to ensure they are delivering the best support and service to our customers.

Louise Tyrer
Specialist Travel Consultant

Louise is a specialist in planning History trips. Her professionalism and knowledge in this area mean teachers are confident from first contact, right through to enjoying the tailored trips.

Shirley Stones
Specialist Travel Consultant

With over 30 years' experience working in travel, Shirley's expertise and attention to detail has enabled her to thrive as a Science and Geography trip specialist. You'll find Shirley is an expert at guiding you through getting the best out of your short time on tour, whether that be in Iceland, Geneva or closer to home in the UK.

Tracey Thornborough
Specialist Travel Consultant

Tracey has specialised in organising MFL trips for over 6 years. Having worked in customer service for many years, she has a strong understanding of how important it is to get things right for our customers. She has a wealth of knowledge on her key subjects and has visited the popular destinations for for them, which means she can plan a tour to suit your needs.

Carolyn Lynchey
Specialist Travel Consultant

Carolyn is an expert sales consultant who deals with both customer retention, nurturing longstanding relationships with customers, and acquisition. Her excellent customer service skills and knowledge of the industry make her a fantastic all-round salesperson and consultant at WST.

Sarah Grant
Sixth Form Sales Specialist

Sarah's specialist area is sixth form travel and she focuses primarily on business acquisition. Her knowledge makes her a brilliant advisor and her attention to detail enables her to listen to customers and provide the best possible solution for their educational needs.

Sarah Hall
Specialist Travel Consultant

Sarah joined WST this year and it is her first role in the educational travel industry. Sarah puts quotes together for school trips to various locations.

Lisa Diack
Sales Support

Lisa provides a wide range of administrative support to the sales team and assists in designing trips to suit various needs and budgets. She supports the booking process by answering questions, giving advice and entering data on our in-house system.

Nichola Dixon
Operations Manager

Nichola has worked in educational travel for over 15 years – gaining experience about the importance of attention to detail and having a reliable point of contact during your trip. Her passion is to support and guide her team to build relationships with the tour leaders we work with, ensuring that our educational trips are of a high standard for both teachers and pupils.

Leanne Coy
Senior Tour Consultant

Leanne has a strong background in travel and customer service having studied Tour Operations and Customer Service at college. She has worked in educational travel for over 8 years. As a Senior in the team she also ensures that we deliver up to date and accurate information at all times and that we maintain consistent standards of service.

Elleanor West
Senior Tour Consultant

Elleanor specialises in delivering expert advice to groups travelling to New York, Washington, London and France. As a fluent french speaker Elleanor is on hand to support her colleagues and our french suppliers with translation and building relationships. As a Senior in the team she works closely with colleagues to ensure we deliver accurate information at all times and that we maintain consistent standards of service.

Jenny Clark
Tour Consultant

Jenny has worked in group and educational travel for 20 years – delivering a whole range of tours to worldwide destinations and closer to home in the UK and Europe.

Helen Ellams
Tour Consultant

Helen has worked in educational travel for 10 years. She Helen specialises predominantly on History tour destinations such as Ypres, Somme, Berlin and Krakow and is also one of our Italy experts

Rachel Fryer
Tour Consultant

Rachel has worked in the educational travel industry for 10 years, focusing primarily on tours in the UK and France.

Carole Burrows
Tour Consultant

Carole has been working in Educational Travel for 14 years. Carole's specialist areas include New York, Washington, Spain and London

Kimberley Ratcliffe
Tour Consultant

Kim has extensive knowledge of working in the travel industry. She currently specialises in trips around the UK and to USA. Kim adds the all-important finishing touches, making sure no stone is left unturned.

Ilona Lanci
Tour Consultant

Ilona is a new addition to our Operations team. She specialises in planning tours to Paris, Opal Coast and all regions of Spain.

Sophie Beattie
Tour Consultant

Sophie is a recent addition to the Operations team. Her priority is supporting group leaders in planning their UK school trips.

Julie Hampson
Support Services Team Leader

Julie has worked in the school travel industry for 38 years and has gained a wealth of experience in helping teachers arrange their school tours.

Jessica Stretton
Support Services Administrator

Jessica mainly supports the sales process – She handles provisional bookings, quote requests, rates and accommodation, books accommodation, keeps all documentation in order ensuring there is a smooth handover to the Tour Consultants once a booking is confirmed.

Lewis Belfield
IT Executive

Lewis ensures that our IT systems run smoothly so that the teams can service our customers as efficiently as possible. He is always working on developing our IT systems, so that we have the most up to date technology across our travel group.

Duncan Barnes
Head of Product and Purchasing

With 16 years experience in the educational travel industry, Duncan is the link between our customer facing and support teams. He ensures that we are sourcing the best suppliers and developing the right products at the best prices, so that you have the best choices for your students and your study objectives.

Daniel Burrough
Financial Controller

Daniel's role is two-fold, working closely with all brands to ensure we have the right data to achieve our commercial goals, whilst also heading up the Finance team who look after all payment plans with our suppliers.

Aimee Doherty
Finance Team Leader

Aimee has worked in educational travel for over 18 years and has developed a great working relationship with all our suppliers, ensuring her team are organising payments to the right suppliers at the right time.

Stephanie Mansley
Senior Finance Executive

Stephanie works closely with the Tour Consultants to make sure all customer financial paperwork is accurate and timely.

Chantelle Hall
Finance Assistant

Matthew Clarke
Finance Assistant

Chris Derby
Transport Team Leader

Chris has worked in the travel industry for 20 years and has developed great relationships with key travel suppliers including airlines, coach and rail providers.

Tiegan Skivington
Transport Executive

Tiegan works closely with the Transport Team Leader to ensure the transportation of each and every group runs as smoothly as possible.

Sheelagh Clegg
Contracts Manager

Sheelagh has worked in educational travel for 40 years. During this time she has travelled the world and built up life long relationships with a variety of suppliers. She also works closely with School Travel Forum on maintaining our safety promise.

Nicky Martin
Marketing Manager

Nicky has worked in educational travel for over 25 years. She ensures that across the Next Generation Travel group, from the first time we speak to you, we are delivering a seamless and reassuring customer experience so that you can focus on making the most of the trip with your students.

Paris Leach
Senior Marketing Executive

Paris leads marketing campaigns for various products, working with internal departments and external agencies to deliver. With the use of both online and offline channels, she promotes our trips and communicates with existing and potential customers.

Jack Nellist
Marketing Executive

Jack joined us this year and brings a range of knowledge to the marketing team with a strong focus on SEO, PPC and advertising.

Bethany Heartwell
Marketing Co-ordinator

Beth assists in creating engaging content for brochures, website and social media. She takes photographs, creates videos and supports the marketing team with a range of administrative duties.

David Craven
Non Executive Chairman

As the Non Executive Chairman of Next Generation Travel, David is responsible for working alongside the board to agree the set of core values that influence everything we do.

Deborah Beckett
Founder & Corporate Development Director

As a founder of Next Generation Travel I take our responsibility as the tour operator very seriously, ensuring that tour leaders can trust our promise to deliver tours which always meet their expectations.

Maria Whiteman
Managing Director

I have worked in the travel industry for over 29 years and I joined Next Generation Travel in October 2019 as MD Designate and moved in to the MD role in October 2020.

Sian Belfield
People & Customer Experience Director

Sian has worked in the travel industry for 30 years, spending 26 of those in educational travel.

Sarah Foden
Non Executive Director

As Non Executive Director of Next Generation Travel I am passionate about our commitment to deliver the very best in educational, cultural and enriching visits.

Dave Finch
Finance Director

Dave has been a Commercial Accountant for over 35 years, over 20 years of which have been as Finance Director with a market leading specialist travel company.

Request a quote

If you would like a quote for a tour provided by WST please fill in your Contact Details below. We aim to contact you within the same business day.

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Extra information

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Meet our Team

Pre-booking

Mo Ogden Head of Group Sales

Nici Smith Sales Team Leader

Louise Tyrer Specialist Travel Consultant

Shirley Stones Specialist Travel Consultant

Tracey Thornborough Specialist Travel Consultant

Carolyn Lynchey Specialist Travel Consultant

Sarah Grant Sixth Form Sales Specialist

Sarah Hall Specialist Travel Consultant

Lisa Diack Sales Support

Tour Planning

Nichola Dixon Operations Manager

Leanne Coy Senior Tour Consultant

Elleanor West Senior Tour Consultant

Jenny Clark Tour Consultant

Helen Ellams Tour Consultant

Rachel Fryer Tour Consultant

Carole Burrows Tour Consultant

Kimberley Ratcliffe Tour Consultant

Ilona Lanci Tour Consultant

Sophie Beattie Tour Consultant

Support Team

Julie Hampson Support Services Team Leader

Jessica Stretton Support Services Administrator

Lewis Belfield IT Executive

Duncan Barnes Head of Product and Purchasing

Daniel Burrough Financial Controller

Aimee Doherty Finance Team Leader

Stephanie Mansley Senior Finance Executive

Chantelle Hall Finance Assistant

Matthew Clarke Finance Assistant

Chris Derby Transport Team Leader

Tiegan Skivington Transport Executive

Sheelagh Clegg Contracts Manager

Nicky Martin Marketing Manager

Paris Leach Senior Marketing Executive

Jack Nellist Marketing Executive

Bethany Heartwell Marketing Co-ordinator

Directors

David Craven Non Executive Chairman

Deborah Beckett Founder & Corporate Development Director

Maria Whiteman Managing Director

Sian Belfield People & Customer Experience Director

Sarah Foden Non Executive Director

Dave Finch Finance Director

Our Awards & Accreditations

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Safety & Support