Talking at the Summer Summit, Tracy Halliwell, director of business tourism at Visit London, explains the objectives and dynamics of Visit London’s new Business Tourism Group and outlines her expectations as a new member of the MIA Destinations Group. 

London is Getting Serious about Business
In the past, London has, in a way, suffered from being too successful, we have not been serious about our bids for large conferences and conventions. Now we have the Olympics legacy to secure, the country has won the right to host the Rugby World Cup 2015 and are bidding on a myriad of other significant international sporting events; fingers crossed for the FIFA World Cup in 2018; there’s a real sense now that the country, and London itself, has a renewed interest in winning big events and is serious about doing so.  With the new International Conference Centre coupled with £16billion investment programme across London in terms of hotel rooms and facilities, the city is certainly able now to go for the big city wide conventions, which we haven’t perhaps had the confidence to win before.

London has always been a busy destination, with hotel occupancies running comparatively high, a transport system handling 28 million journeys every day and some of the busiest airports in the world.  Often it has been difficult to match the availability of our venues with the needs of the other component parts of the city that must all come together in bidding competitively for theses major events.

Now that we have the product, we need to get the city working together; we’re aiming to get the city as a whole to say, “Yes. We want to go after some of the big city wide conventions.”
During the session, an association representative said that one of the key things in attracting an event to your destination is showing that you all work together in partnership.  So it’s great for the association to be met by convention bureau, the hotels, the venues, all saying ‘We work together, we’ve come together to welcome you.’

Uniting Industry Leaders
This is why we’ve put together the Business Tourism Group.  The group is comprised of very senior people such as CEOs of hotels, venues, Transport for London, BAA, London City Airport, retail, attractions, exhibition organisers, experiential companies, PCOs, anything and anyone that could touch a business event in anyway. We’ve got together and we’ve been working over the last eight months on what we need to do as a city if we are going to become more serious in this field and how we can work together ; how we can push the barriers down. How can we go after the pieces of business that are relevant to us, how can we overcome various issues.

We undertook some research with meetings and event planners and asked them what makes one destination more attractive that another. And we got some useful information that says it’s not only a physical choice.  It is an emotional choice.  A lot of this is how welcome do they feel, do they feel that a city really wants them to come.

This activity has lead to the development of a policy document which explains the value of meetings, which we’re currently pushing up the line to the GLA, and Central Government. The message is that business visits and events have a wider economic benefit than just those delegates coming in to attend the meeting.

The document presents a strategy to attract larger city wide events; essentially is says we need to look at five areas:

Product-we need to support venues and hotels, support their planning and development

City Welcome-We have five points of entry into London, which is in many ways is a great thing, but we are also pulling these together to ensure a consistent ‘Welcome’ into the city.

Civic Engagement-How much does the leader, the mayor and his people do to contribute to attracting events; they need to be involved.

Research-What is the value of these events? What is business tourism worth? How many people does it employ? How much does it contribute in tax revenue? All can be established by research which we can use to strengthen our argument.

Value for Money-London is perceived as an expensive city, but the truth is London has a choice of everything, all ranges of venues and accommodation, from university halls of residence to 6 star luxury hotels.   We’re looking at how we can work together, with partners to develop a value proposition for the city.

What we are doing with this initiative is saying to the world, ‘London is serious; we want to do business with you.’

Paris and Vienna are good examples of cities that are working together for the good of the business tourism offer and London is upping the ante.  We have brought together respected people who will be listened to, so it’s not just the tourist board waving the flag, it’s the private sector coming together and saying ‘we need to do this’.

The initiative hasn’t started yet, we’re just about to compile the finale report based on the work we’ve done, the feedback and research and it will go to the Mayor’s office this summer, to feed into where the city is going in terms of future funding, structure, branding, financial assistance; how we can pull together and move forward.

Working with MIA
We have joined the MIA Destinations Group and believe the AIM accreditation is something, as a city, we need to support. We’d like to work with our counterparts in other tourist boards and convention bureaus, to work on dual city programmes and develop those relationships through the group. Indeed, there are opportunities to pass business out that we need to keep in the UK. For example, in the association market, once it’s been in London, it will not be back for a few years, so there’s no reason we wouldn’t assist another UK destination or city on bidding; far better for it to come to the UK than go somewhere else.

To a large extent I believe we can share best practice ideas and work together in other areas. We all must be spending money in research, why not commission it together, through the MIA Destinations Group.

To us, the MIA Destinations Group is a chance to sit down with our colleagues from around the country and have an open and frank discussion.  It’s a chance for all destinations to raise their game together, to raise the competitiveness of the nation so we improve our chances of winning bids nationally; London will benefit along with everywhere else.