The UK&I competes on the world-stage for events, so what makes it unique? Cameron Roberts finds out more.
The events industry the world over is awakening, with the UK&I, North American, European and much of the Asian markets recovering and China reopening its doors to international visitors, the UK&I now takes its seat at the table of global event destinations.
If we look to the exhibitions industry as a comparison, UFI published a report showing that operating profits are better than 2019 for more than half of UK organisers, compared to 31% globally. This shows that we are bouncing back stronger in comparison to its global counterparts.
Because of this, the region must rely on its strengths and begin to rectify its weaknesses in order to continue to be a premium events destination. To find out what makes our community unique I spoke to Nick de Bois, chair, British Tourist Authority; Paul Black, head of business events, VisitBritain; and Martin Fullard, associate director, The Business of Events.
Pros and cons
Like any destination UK&I has its own set of pros and cons, with strengths being the creative nature of many businesses based within the islands as well as its diversity of regions and businesses.
“England boasts a highly professional and creative events industry with world-leading event cities, from London to Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester to Newcastle, coupled with global airline connectivity, rail connections to mainland Europe and ease of domestic access,” said de Bois.
“Its diverse strengths range from well-established and accessible sectors including life science and medical, tech, creative and finance to fast growing transformative sectors such as cleantech, digital manufacturing, AR, VR and biopharmaceutical,” he added. However, this diversity and number of sectors served can lead to an events community that is spread quite thin. As Black says: “The UK events community is quite fragmented, given the diverse layers and supplier base across types of events as well as how business is ‘booked’. This is quite similar in the US, some of our EU neighbours less so.
“The industry is served by several industry associations that support UK events as the recognised voice of the industry, to engage and raise awareness of the sector with the UK Government.”
The strength that is perhaps more unique to UK&I than its neighbours on the world stage are the groups and communities that exist within the markets. Black continues: “There are a number of strong community groups and networks, with a very active group of collaborative event professionals in the UK.
“The industry is evolving quickly, despite the challenges of the last two years, and is expanding its reach into areas including public policy and sector growth, working with regional administrations and stakeholders.”
But what’s a destination without its people? That’s where the UK in particular shines through, it’s the people that make up the businesses within the region that set it apart from many international counterparts.
“In the case of the UK, we have some of the most fantastic creative agencies in the world. Whenever there is a major event happening around the globe, invariably, it is being run or at least worked on in part by a significant UK based agency, you look at the likes of Identity or Smyle, WRG, or Jack Morton worldwide. These are huge businesses with strong UK roots, many of which are in fact, British companies,” said Fullard.
He continued: “We are phenomenally talented as an events community, thinking outside the box and trying new ideas is something that we do very well, so organisations all around the world want to capitalise on that, they want our expertise.”
Regional experts
Part of the appeal of the UK&I is its regionality, whilst London is the typical hub for the conferences market, destinations outside of the capital are seeing growth in organiser interest.
But the UK events scene could be leveraging its destinations more, that’s the message of the The de Bois Review, which outlined key reasons that the UK must invest in its Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) in order to support tourism.
“The current DMO landscape in England is fragmented, making it challenging for visitors, as well as event organisers, in accessing information and support.
“By implementing the DMO Review recommendations we can create a simplified tiering structure and with it a national portfolio of high performing DMOs, better placed to support their own destinations and businesses as well as the wider visitor economy,” said de Bois.
This increased focus on regional supply chains is a draw for the UK&I events scene, with a diverse range of local businesses, suppliers and organisers all being well connected across the islands.
Black added: “National and city convention bureaus also form an important layer in the UK event industry, being well connected with event suppliers and wider regional stakeholders such as academic and inward investment organisations.”
Room to grow
Whilst it is clear that UK&I have strengths along the lines of creativity and that the need is there to utilise the existing strengths to their fullest, where’s the pain points for the events community?
Having now tentatively recovered from the pandemic and events return to something resembling 2019 levels, the attention now turns to what we can do to improve out offering to internationals.
Fullard talked about the fact that the industry is still feeling the impact of Brexit and how it impacts the talent acquisition and retention within events. He said: “We’re certainly very culturally astute within our industry. I think that where our problem lies at the moment, you could perhaps to pin the tail on the Brexit donkey purely on the grounds that it has impacted the resource that we can employ is now harder to recruit across our hospitality settings.
“Other organisations in our industry are struggling to find the right talent, we’ve always been open to workers coming in joining us from abroad, which has obviously taken a dive. While talent retention and recruitment is an issue worldwide, and it’s not solely down to Brexit, it’s certainly not good PR for the country to attract the right talent.”
For de Bois, it is more along the lines of leveraging local regions to their fullest capacity. He said: “We need to recognise the breadth of knowledge and experience across the business community and the significant economic role and societal impact of hosting events. Having a ‘seat at the table’ with strong regional and national stakeholder relationships maximises the opportunities of hosting important business events, aligning with key sector policy goals.”
He continued by highlighting tracking how events impact local areas as well as how DMOs can contribute to demonstrating the impact of events on local communities. He said: “Other areas to address include more robust and uniform data, to demonstrate the economic importance of business events and effective impact management strategies, working with stakeholders and clients to show the societal benefits.
“We can however do more to improve our competitiveness, our welcome and to ramp up local and national advocacy to support in securing bids. A new empowered DMO structure would facilitate this.”
