Business events research
View the latest data and insights relating to business visits and events in Britain.
Introduction
The business visits and events sector is incredibly diverse – covering trade fairs, conferences and congresses, outdoor and entertainment events, as well as business tourism.
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Business Events Delegate Spend (2024)
This report focused on a few main topics: expenditure by inbound business visitors to Britain, behaviour of delegates extending their trip for leisure, travel choices, sustainability & other findings.
Report highlights
- Average delegate spend at business events in the UK has risen well above inflation since 2017, primarily due to longer stays.
- International business events attract much higher average spend than their domestic equivalents (4:1), as international visitors stay longer and pay higher attendance fees.
- Delegates from outside Europe spend £1,824 on average, compared to £872 for delegates from within Europe, and £328 for UK delegates.
- Extending a trip increases spend by a factor of 2.5. Among those who extend their trip for leisure, the average spend is £1,760. Without the extension, the same delegates would have spent £714 on average.
- Looking at differences among event types, the average trip spend for association events (£854) is significantly higher than for corporate events (£651), and both types are higher than exhibitions (£326).
- Average spend (within the UK) for incentive trips is £2,113 per delegate.
- The main motive to attend an event is networking/collaboration (64%), followed by learning (53%) and career development (33%).
- The majority of delegates hope to return to the city/region for leisure and/or business.
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VisitBritain Business Events Delegate Spend Report
Published in May 2025
Business Events Research & Insights Webinar (2024)
The enclosed report was presented to British city stakeholders, extracting data from multiple sources from across the industry including the Event Industry Council, International Congress and Convention Association, the Size and Scale Index for Exhibitions and UK Conference and Meeting survey.
Webinar highlights
- The direct value of the events industry was £61.65 billion to the UK economy in 2023 (UKEvents Report 2024).
- Looking at sector performance, the Events Industry Council revealed that 2023 saw sustained growth in Business Events performance worldwide, with the UK exceeding the Western European average in RFP activity at the start of 2024.
- The UK received 1.5m inbound business event visitors in 2023, spending £1.7bn. Inbound business events visits recovered to 84% of 2019 levels, faster than business travellers in general, and spending 38% more per trip than the average inbound visitor (International Passenger Survey, ONS).
- Looking at association events specifically, the UK maintained its 6th rank from ICCA for the number of meetings hosted in 2023, recovering 69% of pre-COVID volumes, with London, Edinburgh and Glasgow hosting the most meetings within the UK.
- The Business of Events has assessed influences on destination selection among global planners, showing that ‘cost and value’, ‘safety and security’, and ‘equity and diversity’ are most important for planners globally, while sustainability and social impact is now becoming expected for venues.
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VisitBritain Business Events Research and Insights webinar 2024.pdf
July 2024
Understanding business visits
This report was based on data from the International Passenger Survey (IPS), carried out by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) during 2016, 2018, 2019, and 2022. In those years, we asked those who visited the UK for business about their main purpose or reason for visiting the UK on business (this includes meetings, conferences and trade shows.)
Report highlights
Business visits accounted for 16% of all inbound visits in 2022: a total of 5.1 million visits, contributing £5.0 billion in spend (19% of all inbound spend in 2022).
- UK business visitors had a shorter length of stay, but the average spend per night was much higher than the all-purpose average figure – making this a very valuable segment to the UK tourism industry.
- Post-COVID recovery is underway for Business visitors, with visits reaching 59% of 2019 levels in 2022, and spend reaching 86% of 2019 levels (76% spend recovery in real terms). However, this was one of the slower recovering journey purposes in that year.
- A significant proportion of Business visitors fall within the Business Events or MICE category (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions). In 2022, 22% of inbound business travellers were from this sector (1.1 million), and they were the source of 29% of business spend (£1.5 billion).
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Business visits to the UK by overseas residents (2022)
Business Event Type | Visits (000) | Nights (000) | Spend (£m) |
Meeting one to five people | 950 | 3,183 | £934 |
Meeting six to 20 people | 895 | 3,649 | £1,139 |
MICE including: | 1,112 | 5,102 | £1,456 |
- Meeting more than 21 people | 361 | 1,628 | £507 |
- Incentive or team building | 94 | 490 | £139 |
- Conference, convention or congress | 414 | 1,940 | £504 |
- Exhibition, event or trade show | 242 | 1,043 | £305 |
Training or development | 248 | 2,620 | £423 |
Lorry driving | 1,352 | 2,876 | £183 |
Other | 520 | 5,660 | £745 |
Don’t know | 73 | 742 | £101 |
All business visits | 5,149 | 23,832 | £4,982 |
