THE city has found the perfect candidate to represent its £1 billion tourism industry but she faces a challenging time, her predecessor has warned.

Anne Martin, managing director of Brighton Palace Pier, is succeeding Soozie Campbell, who has served as Brighton and Hove Tourism Alliance chairwoman for the past four years.

Mrs Martin, who has been the pier’s MD for 13 years, said the alliance would “strive for continual improvement” to make the city the destination of choice.

Her predecessor said Brighton’s tourism industry faced challenging times with a depleted Visit Brighton, the tourism board, expected to make even further savings.

Ms Campbell said the alliance had organised numerous beach cleans, led the campaign for a park and ride, helped improve access to The Lanes and pushed to ensure the city remained a welcoming and clean place for visitors during her four-year tenure.

But she said many issues remained unresolved including attempts to move Visit Brighton to a more commercially funded footing. Its staff have been reduced to a third because of funding cuts.

She said: “Nobody knows how long the funding can continue. The council is currently putting in £500,000 but there will come a point where they won’t be able to do that.

“It’s going to be even harder now because there is still a lot of work to be done because we have lost a million daytrippers and figures will be down even more this year because of the rail strikes so we have a lot of ground to make up.

“Coming from a commercial background, I have just been stunned how long it takes for things to happen in the public sector.

“You have an idea and ten years later, it might just have materialised.”

Speaking about her successor, Ms Campbell, who is stepping down to focus on developingher business in France, said the Brighton Palace Pier boss would be ideally suited for the role.

She said: “I think Anne will be fantastic because the pier is right at the coalface of the city’s tourism industry.

“While the council work to last year’s tourism figures, they already have the figures for 2016 so they have their finger on the pulse of what is happening.”

Mrs Martin said: “We will strive for continual improvement in the city by engaging with others to improve the visitor experience and so attract more visitors to the city.

“We want Brighton to be the destination of choice for those visiting for city breaks or longer holidays.”