Simon Mills, head of business visits and events and partner marketing manager for VisitBritain, Reviews the Summer Summit session ‘Leading Organisations and Winning New Business in a Post-Recession World’ and explains VisitBritain’s initiatives to support business tourism.

Facing Competition
During the session, we talked very much about what Britain’s competitive advantages are. About what we are doing that encourages events to come to the UK, what we can do to improve that.  I think, as a nation maybe we don’t always give ourselves enough credit, because we have some great venues, some great cities and some great destinations. So I know we can appeal to the overseas inbound businesses to hold their event here successfully, but I don’t think we’re always working together to achieve it.
One of the main issues that came across clearly in the session is how we deal with competition from other European cities; how can we ensure that we have the best value, the best offerings and incentives for delegates coming to the UK.
While there were discussions around the fact that we don’t subvent as a nation, when other countries do, it was also clear that it is not always about money.  Attracting more events to Britain will require us to realise our USPs and play on them along with our ability to influence academia to pull events to the UK, all of this was covered at length, so there were, in my opinion, some enlightening points that came out of the session.
Working Together
As mentioned above, a clear point that came from the session was the need for the industry within the UK to work together; the different destinations to share best practice; to share ideas. And this is beginning to happen.
VisitBritain is involved as much as is possible. Like the MIA, we have a small destinations group that we share VisitBritain research with and talk through issues we are working on, like securing the Olympics legacy, and the benefits that event offers.
This is a new initiative and we meet for the first time in July. There are 20 destinations involved so far and other regional and national boards such as Visit Wales, Visit London and Visit Scotland, and we will meet every six months.
During the meetings, VisitBritain will be encouraging representatives to share knowledge between the major cities and regions as much as possible.
Our role is to inspire and encourage overseas delegates and visitors to explore Britain. A lot of this work is through the BVEP so we ensure the right information is there and that we’re channelling the needs of the industry in the right direction.  We can advise people who the right people in Government to speak to are, and we have regular meetings with the DCMS (Department for Culture Media and Sport) to make sure they understand what the key issues in the industry are. Our role is to advise, not to lobby, and to encourage involvement.
National Meetings Week
During National Meetings Week (18th 24thOctober) this year, along with promoting the BVEP’s Meetings and Events Manifesto to parliament on the Wednesday, on the Friday, we are encouraging the events industry to contact their own MP, get them along to their event or venue and get some PR coverage out of it; it all helps raise the profile of their business and the business tourism industry.
Using the influence of CEOs from some of the big event venues, we’ll get MPs involved and engaged; we’ll show them what our industry is all about.