In a paper sent to the BVEP, Sandie Dawe, chief executive of Visit Britain, announced the ways in which the tourist board aims to support the industry to help grow the international demand for UK events as part of its strategy for growth until 2020.
Visit Britain defines its role in growing business visits and events as providing support for major bids, using the organisation’s overseas offices to assist with the promotion of business visits and events, profiling incentive travel as part of a strategy to build the luxury market, and an expansion of the Events are Great Britain campaign.
In addition, the industry and Britain for Events campaign will work with Visit Britain to expand on business extension programmes and pre- and post-event visits.
They will do this through tie-ups with the Visit Britain online shop as well as co-ordinating with Visit Britain and UK Trade & Investment on a corporate programme to invite overseas contacts to hold meetings and events in Britain
Dawe said: "Visit Britain reduced its support for business tourism following a reduction to budget and subsequent restructure in 2011. Simultaneously other national tourist boards, city convention bureaux and the sector itself have continued to promote business visits and events with positive results.
"The challenge, therefore, is to build on this strong basis by working with bodies to assist in areas where partnership approaches can add value to the work already being done."
The report also highlighted the potential of the sector to grow the current event attendee expenditures of £36bn to £48bn in 2020.
Michael Hirst, BVEP chairman, said: ""We naturally welcome any positive contribution that Visit Britain can make to the UK event industry. There is a great deal of excellent work being done at country, region and city level, but the resource of the national tourism organisation for Britain with its strong network of overseas offices and invaluable market insights should add more opportunities to attract more events and attendees to Britain."
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