Brighton and Hove sees £58m meetings surge (From The Argus)

Brighton and Hove sees £58m meetings surge

6:10pm Wednesday 25th January 2012 in Business News By John Keenan, business editor

Conferences are boosting the coffers of Brighton and Hove as meetings organisers choose Sussex instead of London during Olympic year. Bookings at Brighton and Hove’s conference venues will bring in £58 million in forward bookings to the economy.

Figures from VisitBrighton, the council’s tourism arm, reveal that it handled 122 conference enquiries in 2011, a 13% increase on the year before.

A total of 39 bookings have been confirmed over the next few years. There are 28 major conferences or events booked for 2012, expected to attract more than 30,000 delegates.

Most will be at the Brighton Centre, with others at Brighton Dome, Hilton Brighton Metropole, The Grand, Thistle and the Holiday Inn. The biggest will be the Liberal Democrats’ party conference, in late September, which is expected to attract 8,000 people and bring in £15 million. Other bookings include the TUC Annual Congress in mid- September bringing 2,000 dele- gates and the Unison Health Conference in April, bringing 1,500 people. The VisitBrighton team has also hosted groups of French and German conference organisers in the city, plus dozens of other individual conference representatives.

Cabinet councillor in charge of tourism Geoffrey Bowden said: “These figures are a tribute to the proactive approach taken by the VisitBrighton team in marketing our city and emphasises the importance of the conference business for the local economy.

“The level of interest from conference organisers is extremely high and I expect the VisitBrighton team will be in a position soon to make announcements about major events coming to our city.”

Conference organiser Sam Harrington-Lowe, boss at Pretty Clever Events in Church Road, Hove, said the conference market was growing.

She said: “The city seems to have had a surge in popularity this year with companies moving their annual events out of London to avoid the Olympics. “But we are also fielding enquiries from overseas groups who are drawn to the seaside as a direct result of the games. The conference business seems to be very much alive and kicking.”