“ It ’ s difficult to keep it on ministers ’ agendas day-to-day because of the sheer volume of everything else going on .” The Business Visits and Events partnership announced it ’ s rebranding to UK Events during the discussion – creating a unified voice for the events industry to promote it interests .
Villiers said the creation of UK Events would support more united communications with government .
She said : “ The important thing is all the representative of trade associations are working together regularly and when stuff comes up on which they are agreed that can be conveyed to ministers and decision makers with one voice .”
Chair of the newly branded Chris Skeith said : “ We need to ensure government is focused on using events for regeneration .
“ The events sector fuels pockets of joy . Trades are stimulated .”
Skeith also highlighted the benefits of being included in the tourism recovery plan as vital to reiterating the events industry ’ s worth in government .
Wright said : “ It is really challenging to get people from government in the room , so to get Theresa Villiers here even for one hour is a real achievement . From today ’ s event we can work on a policy agenda and go back to DCMS about how we can tick boxes on growth , levelling up , investment .”
Giving the keynote at the event , Visit Britain board member Dame Judith Macgregor said : “ I think it ’ s remarkable that over the years the UK has hosted so many important global events . Even in the sparse landscape of the past three years we had Cop26 a really mega event by any standards , the Commonwealth Games and One Young World , and not to forget Eurovision straight ahead of us as being another great event capturing different elements of trade , the visitor economy and business events .
“ The tourism recovery plan 2021 , highlighted business events as a key component of the recovery .
Dame Judith MacGregor
“ At Visit Britain the business events growth programme forms part of our commitment to build and develop the business events sector .”
Neil Brownlee , head of business events at VisitScotland said they used a policy-based approach to make induvial government departments understand the value of events as part of their own sectors . Vasyl Zhygalo , managing director of RX
Business events are solution to global energy crisis
Tania Baumann , chief operating officer World Energy Council told the Business of Events Policy Forum how the UK events industry had united to save the flagship World Energy Congress after the St Petersburg event was cancelled .
She described Neil Brownlee , of Visit Scotland , as a “ knight in shining armour ” who reached out to save the event – putting forward Aberdeen as an alternative destination .
“ The events sector fuels pockets of joy . Trades are stimulated ”
“ Suddenly I felt this community of people in the UK coming and saying ‘ How can we help you ?’ It only happened through collaborative action . We put the event together in record time and in a wholly different format .”
She added that the solution to the global energy crisis would only be found through live events .
“ The energy crisis is a global crisis . We are only going to solve it through global cooperation , which is why we need events . It is the only way to find a collaborative solution .”
Middle East described the importance of holding World Travel Market in London . He said the flagship RX event , which attracts 3,000 exhibitors from more than 150 countries brought tens of thousands of people into the city each year .
“ London and the UK market are very attractive to the travel market . “ Most of the time it is very accessible .” A spokesman for the DCMS at the event said that as the government was such a vast organisation , showing different departments the tangible benefits of events would help .
He added : “ We need to make a stronger case for the impact of events , that ’ s where I see the focus of our work going forward .” EN
Vasyl Zhygalo and Tania Baumann
December — 37