The sector needs to work together to provide data to demonstrate its true economic value, tourism minister Nigel Huddleston has said.
Speaking at the mia's Ignite conference, Huddleston said: “We want to work closely with the sector to ensure it is set for the future. We want it to be ambitious in its sustainability, offering quality careers for young people across the country, as well as being a sector that makes data-driven decisions.”
He added that the integrity and unification of data is key. “The more you can come together and get that data in a comfortable format, consolidate it as one informed industry voice, the better it is for the sector and enables me to do my job better as well.
“It empowers me to have meaningful conversations with the treasury about the size and scale of the sector and how important it is. Fragmentation causes real problems dealing with the relationship between government and business.”
Huddleston praised the work already being done by the Meetings Industry Association (mia) and said the association’s miaTouchstone data platform “is exactly the type of information that we value as we look to build a more detailed data picture of the UK event and tourism sector as a whole.”
The miaTouchstone platform is a measuring and reporting tool for event businesses to reference how well they are doing and benchmark themselves. It’s entirely free to use for mia members and the Minister urged mia members and non-members "who haven’t done so already to take a closer look at it.”
Following Nigel Huddleston’s address to the audience at the conference, a series of talks followed with the aim of demonstrating how the sector needs to respond and evolve to recover.
Highlights included sessions from multi-generation expert Dr Eliza Filby and business anthropologist Lucia Laurent-Neva, as well as FutureFoodService’s Simon Stenning and German Convention Bureau’s, Matthias Schultze.
Drawing attention to sustainability, Green Tourism’s Scott Maclean discussed the drive to net-zero revealing a new strategic partnership with the mia will be announced in the new year to champion standards.
Jane Longhurst, chief executive of the mia, said: “What is clear and was reinforced and demonstrated throughout the day, is the importance of data and we have a huge opportunity to provide the exact collaborative insight that the government requires to demonstrate the value and impact of our sector to the economy. And, we can do just that, if the sector engages with us and uses our new business intelligence platform miaTouchstone.”
A desire to travel led Holly Patrick to the business meetings and events world and she’s never looked back. Holly takes a particular interest in event sustainability and creating a diverse and inclusive industry. When she’s not working, she can be found rolling skating along Brighton seafront listening to an eclectic playlist, featuring the likes of Patti Smith, Sean Paul, and Arooj Aftab.
