When Event spoke to former Visit London chief executive David Campbell in May 2005 he was about to start his new position as head of the 拢500m O2 development. Few could have imagined the difference a year would make on the capital's landscape, none more so than Campbell's successor, former head of marketing at Selfridges, James Bidwell.
A month to the day after stepping into the hot seat at the London tourism agency and Bidwell was celebrating the 2012 Olympics win in Trafalgar Square.
Almost a year on and Visit London's chief executive has announced that the target of bringing 拢48m worth of events business into the capital by the April financial year-end is smashed. A buoyant events market and the Olympic-win effect have resulted in the agency's convention bureau booking 拢77.3m worth of events into the city's venues and hotels.
"The tragedy that occurred just 24-hours after the Olympic announcement (the London bombings) put us into recovery mode for the second half of last year and we were still running global marketing campaigns at the beginning of 2006," says Bidwell.
"But with a dedicated team in place, our pitch conversion rate for events has excelled. An increased level of business tourism during what has been a difficult time is largely down to this."
Bidwell has accumulated many air miles since what he calls 'the biggest event pitch of all time'. He has been investigating the most effective means to leverage the anticipated impact 2012 will have on the city. He has spent time in Sydney, Turin for the Winter Olympics and most recently Melbourne for the Commonwealth Games. Two days before meeting Event, Bidwell stood alongside the Prime Minister at City Hall as Tony Blair rallied London to become the best city in the world by 2012.
Blair announced an extra 拢35m to boost education, as well as plans for a cultural festival to unite London's design week, computer games week, fashion week and film festival, within a single season from next year.
(Rumour is rife that Oscar-winning director Anthony Minghella will be chosen to co-ordinate it.)
Bidwell says: "Melbourne didn't have a Big Ben or an Eiffel Tower to draw visitors to its Commonwealth Games. Its brand proposition centred on an event strategy. I am now looking to set up a team focused on bidding to bring major consumer events such as the Tour de France to the capital."
The 2007 Tour de France will be the third time the race has come to England but the first time it will venture into the capital. London will host two stages, the first a prologue in the city centre on 7 July with the second forming the start of the race and setting off in London before heading south through Kent. "Tour de France will benefit London's visitor economy by 拢56m on an outlay of around 拢4m. That is a fantastic return on investment," says Bidwell.
Two days after meeting Event, Bidwell joined Mayor Ken Livingstone and 70 other London figures, including Sebastian Coe and 2012 Organising Committee chief executive Paul Deighton, on a one-week visit to China.
"We will build the bridge between the London and Beijing Olympics and encourage business from the region," says Bidwell. "Half of the Chinese listed companies have joined the London Stock Exchange with the other half listed in New York. We are doing everything in our power to improve this while showcasing London's creativity."
A creative showcase took place in Shanghai on 13 April, where Livingstone teamed up with pop band Girls Aloud at a London Fusion event that saw a UK fashion show and exposition take place within a lit balloon structure called an Arcsphere. The mayor also unveiled plans for the capital's first mini-eco city likely to be built in Newham.
Bidwell says: "The eco-city project is great news because London needs to become more sustainable which will enhance the London brand. It is a huge issue for the events industry and perhaps the biggest issue of our time.
"The Visit London Awards has added a category to reward sustainability and the events industry could learn a lot from projects such as Eden in Cornwall or Dongtan, being constructed by British engineering firm Arup in China."
A visit to Beijing's 91,000-seat main stadium for the 2008 Games prompted Deighton to underline his determination to avoid building 'bog-standard' facilities that end up as costly white elephants. Deighton said he preferred not to send designs back to the drawing board after construction work on London's Olympic blueprint had started.
With a 拢2bn budget, he promised that each permanent venue would have a defined use after the Games and none would need costly revisions. He also confirmed that an international athletics stadium would be built in Stratford, a rugby club is most likely to be co-tenant in the main stadium after the Games, when its capacity will be cut from 80,000 to 25,000, and that work on the 拢250m main stadium will start next year.
"Content will be critical to all London developments," says Bidwell.
"We are one of the few cities in the world actually growing and that brings with it many issues but it's also the most exciting time to be living in London.
"There are some amazing opportunities for Visit London partners as the number of venues being built increases and enquiry levels continue to rise. For our part, we are talking about facilitating a hotel booking agency scheme to ensure that the increase of 20,000 rooms, due to come on board before 2012, will maintain occupancy levels. A partnership marketing manager will be appointed to liaise with Visit London partners. To get the best out of the work that Visit London does, members need to put something in and that can be as little as keeping in touch with myself and my team."
In order to keep up with the increase in London's content, Bidwell will now be spending more time in the UK and focus on Visit London's digital assets over the coming months, with improvements likely across its website and London TV station. The agency has worked hard to ensure that exhibitions such as the impending Motor Show receive both the mayor and Prime Minister's support and that venues continue to receive the full backing of the agencies' multifaceted divisions. The Visit London Awards in November will be hosted in one of the capital's newest venues, the Roundhouse in Camden. And the tourism agency will be working closely with Excel chief executive Jamie Buchan - also Visit London's deputy chairman - as the Docklands venue consults on the planned phase two of its development.
Meanwhile Campbell - now chief executive of the European arm of Anschutz Entertainment Group and heading the O2 project - has announced that progress on the site of the former Millennium Dome has meant that the O2 will open in July 2007 with a summer season of events. Bidwell recognises a massive shift in the London landscape in the past year. Each of the next six years promises more of the same, which means he hasn't seen anything yet.