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Issue 34 May/June 2010 £2.75
Trade-only BOBI moving to Birmingham By Christina Eccles THE Best of Britain and Ireland show will be moved to the NEC next year as a two-day trade-only event, organisers have revealed. This year’s event took place at London’s Olympia in March and although post-event figures showed a five per cent increase in visitor numbers for the trade days, the consumer days struggled – with visitor numbers dropping from 9,237 to 5,296. Following feedback from visitors and exhibitors, a steering committee – made up of over 40 industry representatives – and organisers BoB Events met to discuss the future of the event, making the decision to move next year’s show from London’s Olympia to Birmingham. It will again take place in March – to coincide with British Tourism Week – with the committee also discussing a biennial rotation of venue and a return to London in 2012. Managing director of BoB Events Rob Mackenzie said: “We welcome the steering committee’s recommendation to return to the NEC in 2011. We have always believed that biennial rotation between London and Birmingham could potentially provide an optimal solution to the needs of
the market and we’re confident that we can maintain the growth in trade visitor numbers and quality when we return to the Midlands next year.” Key recommendations included: The extension of the successful domestic hosted buyer programmes for coach operators and group travel organisers. The re-introduction of a simplified appointment system to allow the pre-scheduling of meetings at BoBI. The organisers are also undertaking research to examine the attitudes of the domestic travel trade, particularly amongst non-visitors to BoBI, to identify how to make the show more appealing to trade visitors. Rob added: “With the quality of the BoBI trade audience enhanced by the domestic buyers programme, trade visitor numbers 27 per cent higher than BTTF 2008, the largestever overseas buying delegation and the best-ever levels of trade audience satisfaction, I believe that BoBI has strong foundations on which to develop.” What do you think should be done to secure the future of the show? Send your comments to ce@whpl.net or contact our editorial team on 01226 734463.
Brits look for UK breaks
The owner of a Stratford-Upon-Avon attraction has set up a new service for tourists following the sudden closure of Shakespeare Country. Dave Matthews of Seek the Magic Org – which operates attractions including the Creaky Cauldron museum – created Not Just Shakespeare to ensure visitors to the town could get any information they needed. Dave said it would be ‘appalling’ for a town like Stratford not to have a tourist information service and he had to step in and do something. Full story Page 3
BRITISH holidaymakers are looking closer to home for their breaks as recent disruptions in air travel make them more reluctant to go abroad. According to travel search site Skyscanner, massive ash cloud disruption which led to the five day closure of airspace over much of Europe, boosted May bank holiday bookings to domestic locations such as London and Belfast. Skyscanner co-founder Barry Smith said this could be due to people looking for ‘safer’ destinations because in the event of more disruption, it would be easier for them to get home. He said: “Top favourites such as Malaga and Alicante have not dropped in popularity at all so overall confidence is strong. “However, we have seen an increase in popularity of some destinations closer to home – London, Dublin and Belfast all shot up in popularity in the last couple of weeks – and it will be interesting to see if this trend continues.”