Cheltenham joins UK’s biggest cities to kick-start recovery

Representatives of Cheltenham’s business events industry will today join with major cities and regions from across the country at a major trade show focused on rebuilding the UK’s £8 billion business events industry.

 

The national MeetEngland event, which runs from 9 to the 11 February is a new virtual tradeshow from national tourism body VisitEngland and brings together some of the world’s leading event planners and buyers to start planning for the return of major new events and conferences – a sector that has been decimated over the past year as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

 

The Meet in Cheltenham team, part of the town’s official marketing body Marketing Cheltenham, is attending the virtual MeetEngland event to promote Cheltenham and the surrounding area as a leading destination for business events and will be representing more than 20 venues from across the town and the surrounding area.

 

Tara Sanchez, Commercial Partnerships Manager at Marketing Cheltenham, said: “We’re really excited to be representing Cheltenham and Gloucestershire at the MeetEngland event this week and to be meeting with buyers and event planners from across the world. With so many superb venues, hotels and meeting spaces in the town, historically, Cheltenham has always enjoyed a really buoyant and successful business events sector. We’re delighted therefore to be able to represent the town alongside the likes of Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol and Bath and begin to re-establish Cheltenham as one of the UK’s top destinations for conferences, meetings and business events.”

 

Chair of VisitEngland Nick de Bois said: “Our priority remains to reassure event planners, delegates and suppliers that our planning towards future recovery continues. MeetEngland Virtual has been designed to inform buyers on England’s business events offering and to highlight the innovation of our sector as we adapt to new ways of working while still ensuring a fantastic business events experience.”

 

The MeetEngland event is being split across two days to accommodate different time zones, starting today with buyers from Europe, China and the UK followed by North American buyers on Thursday 11 February 2021.

 

Throughout the event, delegates are being encouraged to ‘reimagine the future of events in England’ as part of MeetEngland’s new Events Reimagined campaign, demonstrating how England is adapting to the ‘new normal’ in events and developing innovative ways to meet again.