Visit Britain Has A New Plan To Attract Large Conventions Following Brexit
Skift Take
Based on a directive coming straight from the Prime Minister's office, Visit Britain needs to collaborate more closely with its convention industry partners. Now that the government has ponied up the necessary funds to do so, Visit Britain has detailed its plans.
Visit Britain just launched a new 4-year Event Support Program to provide higher levels of advocacy and funding to UK cities to help them convince more international associations to host large-scale conventions in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
This stems from ex-British Prime Minister David Cameron's 5-point Backing The Tourism Sector initiative outlined in July 2015. It acknowledged a lack of collaboration at the time between the national government, the city convention bureaus, and all of the nation's many convention industry partners.
The document states: "We will address a lack of join-up across Britain’s business visits and events sector. We will instigate a Board to identify those events that it is in Britain’s strategic interests to host, and we will then work in partnership across Government to back the biggest and best bids that the UK can work to host."
With the launch of the Event Support Program, convention bureaus and convention centers throughout the UK can apply for monetary support from an annual fund of one million pounds (US $1.3 million). The funds will be disbursed to those cities bidding on large high-profile events that particularly benefit the stature of the country as a leader in advanced sciences and industry.
Cities can also apply for a variety of non-financial assistance, including the involvem
