Bob Cotton to chair new business tourism action group
Bob Cotton, the British Hospitality Association’s (BHA) chief executive, is to chair a new action group to boost England’s business tourism, which has suffered as a result of the recession.
The Business Visits and Events Action Group will focus on key areas of business visits including exhibitions, tradeshows, and corporate, sports and cultural events to improve the number of inbound business trips to the UK, which last year fell by 20 per cent.
The news will be welcomed by UK hotels in particular, who have seen a drop in corporate event bookings as companies scaled back expenditure in response to the recession.
The group, set up by the recently launched Strategic Framework for English Tourism who recognised business tourism as a key area for potential growth, will include representatives from across the hospitality and tourism industry.
Cotton, who will be replaced at the BHA by Ufi Ibrahim in July, said: “We are in the process of creating a robust strategy which will support this important sector and provide focus for the future. Phase one of the strategy will focus on research and market intelligence. We will create a competitor analysis and identify our key objectives and goals that will form a comprehensive sales and marketing plan.”
Ten year action plan
As part of plans to improve inbound business trips, the group will focus on creating a 10-year vision and a short term sales and marketing plan over the next three years.
According to provisional figures from the International Passenger survey, the number of visits to the UK from overseas residents last year fell by 8 per cent on 2008 to 29.6m – the lowest level since 2004.
