Paul Nursey joined Destination Greater Victoria in January 2014. He is an experienced and respected senior tourism leader and progressive tourism marketing, strategy, and branding expert with 25 years of tourism-related leadership and management experience. He has held leadership positions with the Canadian Tourism Commission, Rocky Mountaineer Rail Tours, Mount Seymour Resorts and Tourism Vancouver – the Greater Vancouver Convention and Visitors Bureau. Widely regarded as one of Canada’s top tourism policy minds, Paul serves on the board of Destinations International and the Tourism Industry Association of Canada as the Advocacy Committee Chair.

During his tenure at Destination Greater Victoria, Paul has transformed the organization using the Balanced Scorecard performance management framework. In 2016, Paul successfully negotiated a new funding relationship with local hoteliers, the City of Victoria and Province of BC that enables Destination Greater Victoria to better execute strategic planning over the medium term. Under Paul’s leadership Destination Greater Victoria has assumed responsibility in a natural evolution with SportHost Victoria to partner on sports tourism in Greater Victoria. He has also overseen conference business including co-founding the IMPACT Sustainability Travel and Tourism Conference.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Paul has moved Destination Greater Victoria to a leaner and viable financial model, worked with industry to create the Greater Victoria Rescue and Recovery Task Force and has set the organization on a pathway to support industry for both short term survival and medium term recovery.  This is being done sustainably and in lock step with the values of the community.

As the CEO of Destination Greater Victoria - a member organization of Destinations International - Paul Nursey has taken the Destinations International Equity, Diversity and Inclusion CEO Pledge. He is committed to cultivating a visitor economy that represents a wide variety of individuals at all levels, celebrating the broad range of human differences among us and embracing the commonalities we share. The Destinations International Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion CEO Pledge is available here. Paul has achieved his professional milestones despite a learning disability diagnosed later in his career. For most of his life, Paul did not understand his dyslexia but now has become open and transparent about it. Destination Greater Victoria is committed to an open and inclusive working environment.

Paul holds a degree in Regional Planning from Simon Fraser University, has completed the Executive Development in Tourism program from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, and has completed the Directors Education program from the Institute of Corporate Directors and University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.