London CVB, Venue Target N. America

Events venue ExCeL London and the Visit London convention bureau are joining forces to target North America.

Together they have printed a new meeting planner's guide to London, hosted an event for planners at Meeting Professional Intl.'s World Education Congress in Dallas earlier this month, and launched an e-mail campaign, all targeting North American members of MPI, the Professional Convention Management Assn. and the American Society of Assn. Executives & the Center, said Chris Lynn, Visit London's North American sales and marketing director.

The guide, entitled "Take Your Event to London — A Practical Guide to Planning Your Next Event at ExCeL London," contains information on London's transportation infrastructure, accommodations, reception venues and spouse programs. It will be distributed to North American event planners.

According to ExCeL London Conference and Events Division Managing Director Vanessa Cotton, the facility is designed to cater to large, multi-faceted events and is in an area that is becoming a leisure and business "hot spot." She said she hopes the handbook will heighten awareness and educate association and corporate event organizers about new opportunities in London.

Phil Bloomfield, a public relations consultant for ExCeL, said the venue is always looking for joint marketing opportunities and that more will be forthcoming.

Visit London's projects with partners always depend on the strategy and choice of marketing activity, Lynn said. This partnership made sense because the two had collaborated last year on a U.K. and European guide.

The new project's short-term goal is to raise awareness of London's ability to host large events, which has historically been a challenge. Lynn said it would focus on corporate event planners and association planners. He added that Visit London will soon name a new head of association sales, as part of its efforts to attract large events.

ExCeL London, in East London's Docklands area, offers 65,000 prime square meters (670,000 square feet) of exhibit space and 45 meeting rooms. A £90 million ($166 million) expansion will add 36,000 sq. m. (387,500 sq. ft.), bringing total event space to 100,000 sq. m. (1.1 million sq. ft.) by the end of 2009. Other plans include an entertainment area with bars, restaurants, hotels and a casino, as well as major new residential and retail construction, all in ExCeL's neighborhood.

Visit London also works with Earls Court & Olympia, a central London venue that often competes head-to-head with ExCeL for bookings.

Jeremy Probert, director of communications for EC&O Venues, said that while both venues have partnerships with Visit London, they are clearly rivals and don't share specific initiatives with one another.

Nevertheless, Probert said, "We both work with VL for the greater good, helping promote London as a multi-faceted destination for business and tourism."

ExCeL recently lost Reed Exhibitions' London Book Fair, which was held there in March but in 2007 will return to EC&O, which offers 97,000 sq. m. (1 million sq. ft.) of exhibit space. In May, there was a fight over preferred dates at EC&O between Reed and the Frankfurt Book Fair. Reed won, ensuring the show would return to EC&O, where it had been held since 1987.