SIR - It's now seven weeks since Gary Verity left Welcome to Yorkshire. Two investigations have been launched, one into expenses, and one into staff bullying. The previous chairman has resigned, and an interim Chairman of the Board, Keith Stewart has been announced. There’s an opportunity now for Welcome to Yorkshire to rebuild itself with better transparency, accountability, research and improved communication.

We need a Yorkshire-wide organisation like Welcome to Yorkshire (WTY) to promote the region. If we all work together in a true spirit of collaboration, unified by an agreed strategy, we can be really successful. There's a lot of willingness to do this, and many are looking to WTY to once again take a lead and develop collaborations as they did in their early days.

To move forward, we now need Welcome to Yorkshire and funders such as Craven council to:

* Genuinely understand what tourism businesses need

* Improve communication and collaboration between WTY and the tourism industry

* Work with the industry to create a Yorkshire-wide tourism strategy so we can all work together with common goals

I work with hundreds of tourism businesses across Yorkshire, and (on a voluntary basis) run two networks with over 1000 members in North Yorkshire.

On behalf of these businesses, we now need the Board of Welcome to Yorkshire to answer these questions:

* Does WTY have a firm date for completion of the two investigations and publication of findings?

* When will the search for a new Chief Executive start? What will be the recruitment process?

* When will WTY recruit new members for the board? Will they use a similar transparent and representative process as other destination organisations such as Cumbria Tourism?

* When will the minutes of Board meetings be published? Where?

* At Y19 Peter Dodd announced an industry consultation but no further details have been announced. When will this take place? How?

* What plans does WTY have to work with the tourism industry to develop a collaborative marketing strategy for Yorkshire? What opportunities will there be for input into this by all sectors of the tourism industry?

* What plans does WTY have to improve primary visitor research and evaluation of campaigns, including publishing results of campaigns?

* When will the Service Level Agreements between WTY and its local authority funding partners be published?

* What plans does WTY have to reform the Private Sectors Group and publish minutes of all those meetings?

* What plans does WTY have to refresh the membership scheme? Will membership income (at each level) form part of future reports to funding partners, since this is a good barometer of industry support and therefore Welcome to Yorkshire’s effectiveness?

Susan Briggs

Director, The Tourism Network, Millgate, Masham.