The well-established and popular event The Business Travel Show is evolving in line with the industry it serves to become The Business Travel & Meetings Show for 2010.
The event will move from primarily focusing on business travel to including more meetings based education content and suppliers.
Organiser Centaur Exhibitions has introduced the change to reflect the convergence of the business travel and meetings industries.
This is a result of the increasing role the show's buying audience plays in either booking venues, managing meeting spend or setting policies and budgets as well as the diversification of the show's travel exhibitors into the MICE market.
David Chapple, event director, explained: "Over the last few years we've seen two trends emerging. Meetings are increasingly becoming the responsibility of travel and procurement professionals and in response, traditional travel suppliers are incorporating meetings into their customer offerings."
"By reflecting these industry trends in the content, the show will provide visitors with a greater variety of new ideas, suppliers and education that now fits with their business needs. For the 2010 event we anticipate attracting around 200 business travel and meetings suppliers and will run a forward-thinking conference programme to reflect the changing needs of the audience."
The show carried out a recent survey to business travel professionals who attended the show in February. Of the 500 plus respondents almost one quarter (23.5 per cent) are responsible for meetings budgets in excess of £500,000.
Eight per cent of those manage spend greater than £10 million. Furthermore, 50 per cent have a meetings policy in place; up from 45 per cent in 2008 and 45 per cent of our audience would like to see more meetings suppliers and venues exhibiting.
"The research demonstrates to us that board rooms are becoming more astute about the importance of adopting a formal meetings policy and they are giving this responsibility to their travel and procurement departments to realise the significant savings that can be made. This mirrors the increasing focus of meetings within the business travel function and reinforces our decision to evolve the show and incorporate meetings into our name," continued David Chapple.
The Business Travel & Meetings Show is supported by ITM and HBAA. Paul Tilstone, chief executive ITM, said: "The evolution to the Business Travel & Meetings Show mirrors ITM's own thinking as we recently changed our own name to the Institute of Travel and Meetings. ITM recognised the increasing convergence in the supply and procurement of business travel and meetings, so it's more important than ever that the business travel community, its associations and events all support and recognise the meetings industry. Well done to the revised Business Travel & Meetings Show."
Peter Ducker, executive director HBAA, said: "The name change also reflects our thinking and experience. Our members the venue finders, meeting & event management companies and hotel booking agents are also experiencing this convergence, but from the opposite direction. We are delighted to be supporting the Business Travel & Meetings Show and will be assisting Centaur develop its meetings content further."
Regular show visitor Lin Burgess, category manager travel at Xchanging, said: "I believe that the proposed name change to the Business Travel & Meetings Show for 2010 is a very positive move and in line with the consolidation of transient accommodation, training and meetings spend in the corporate sector and will definitely be welcomed by both buyers and suppliers alike."
Celebrating its 16th anniversary in 2010, The Business Travel and Meetings show is Europe's largest dedicated event for the business travel industry and takes place from 9-10 February at Earls Court in London.
For more information, visit Business Travel & Meetings Show
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