30 of England’s towns and cities are featured in a new publication launching at the National Venues Show (13 – 15 September 2005 at Birmingham’s NEC). Published by VisitBritain’s MeetEngland team, the 60-page cityBusiness is an ‘at a glance’ guide to England’s wide range of conference centres and meeting facilities.

Doing business in England is already popular. International and domestic visitors make nearly 39 million business trips to England every year and together spend over £15 billion. Four out of five of the UK’s business tourism buyers organise events in the UK, predominantly in city locations with only a fifth of business going overseas.

Sarah Mayfield, MeetEngland manager, said: “cityBusiness will help us to drive enthusiasm among organisations large and small, here in the UK and around the world, to choose England for their next business event. England offers easy accessibility from all parts of the world and combines centuries of heritage, world-class events and unique cultural experiences with state-of-the-art conference facilities.

“The National Venues Show is an ideal opportunity for us to remind conference and exhibition organisers and meetings planners of the many reasons for choosing England to host their future events.”

The pages of cityBusiness demonstrate how England’s unique blend of contemporary, historic and unusual venues offers great opportunities for conference organisers. Each destination offers superb accessibility, world-class business hotels, established venues and purpose-built facilities embracing the latest design and technology – all geared to host a wide range of events.

From Portsmouth to NewcastleGateshead, Norwich to Exeter and taking in Birmingham, London, Manchester, Blackpool and many more, England has venues for every kind of event and conference – of every size. cityBusiness also includes a handy hints section with ideas about where to eat or go out after the day’s business is done.

The publication is complemented by the website, www.meetengland.com/citybusiness.