Kerrin MacPhie is on a mission – to make the UK a world leader in the global business events market
In just eight months, the Head of Business Events at Visit Britain, Kerrin MacPhie, has notched up an impressive array of projects designed to stimulate interest among international events planners for locating their business in the UK.
In April, I witnessed the first of many events that she managed to pull off in a very short space of time; she brought together 80 suppliers with 120 international meetings, events and incentive planners at London’s Hilton Bankside for her first MeetGB event, a weeklong series of engagements which culminated in a speed-dating style link-up between GB suppliers and a predominantly European market. From a Scottish perspective, the suppliers I spoke to enjoyed the quick-fire format which enabled them to meet a multitude of potential clients, and some of the smaller ones, in particular, said that it was a very cost-effective way to deploy their marketing spend compared to bigger trade events.
For MacPhie, it was her first public test in a role that she had only taken on the previous November and the way she commanded her audience, with a warm welcome speech, augurs well for maintaining good relations with Europe post- Brexit.
ANYONE WHO HAS met MacPhie – either in her current role or her previous one as Director of Sales at ACC Liverpool – will testify to not only her dynamism and commitment to business events, but also for her connections to organisations both local and global. As for her current focus, she makes clear that her burgeoning contacts book connects to her objectives, which include boosting the UK up the rankings league table for the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA).
“I am delighted that the UK has maintained its top three position globally, after the US and Germany,” she says. “I would like to see that good work continue and to support efforts to develop our destinations in line with their sector strengths, which I believe will only enhance our upwards trend curve.” MacPhie is also rolling out a series of workshops that will tour the nation to engage destinations to help upskill the sector in growing its share of international business events. Spanning ten themes – from Tradeshow Excellence, to a Bidding Masterclass, to Developing an Ambassador Programme – MacPhie is keen to exploit ‘best practice’ approaches for marketing destinations for business events, especially those which may not have been engaged before; her “mission”, she says, is to encourage places not previously on the radar – the so-called ‘hidden gems’.
She adds: “We also know that there is much opportunity from the incentive market and we are keen for the UK to capture a greater share of it, through focused activity and upskilling the sector with research and knowledge of the market, to ultimately win more international business.” Another big focus for MacPhie is to stimulate demand in the Business Events Growth Programme, which is designed to support transforming domestic events into international ones, and also to help destination management organisations (DMOs) bid for international business events.
SHE WOULD LIKE industry colleagues to apply to the fund, which allows access to a £20,000 grant and funds for longer-term support. MacPhie’s vision is also to foster the development of a ‘narrative’ which benefits the UK as a whole; at trade shows the proposition for the likes of VisitScotland, VisitEngland, Tourism Northern Ireland and London & Partners is extremely strong with regards to individual ‘brand stories’ but there is also a deeper proposition that the home nations can all share, whether it be Royal heritage or ‘literary greats’; a testbed for that approach is to be established later this year at IMEX America.
“Our focus is to raise awareness and consideration of the UK as a place to bring events to and we want to engage all of our strategic partners in that process,” MacPhie says. In support of greater co-working in that sense, Jamie Ades has recently joined the team as Destination Relationship & Support Manager, and has been responsible for engaging Marketing Edinburgh and VisitScotland, plus commercial partners, for the MeetGB China event, where key MICE buyers flew into the UK in a carefully-coordinated series of UK-wide educational trips, with a business-tobusiness workshop in Edinburgh on September 28 and 29.
MacPhie says: “The event was fantastic and a real testimony to all the UK buyers who showed a great willingness to engage with this growing market; there were 61,000 business visits from China to the UK in 2017, an increase of 31% on 2016, with business visitors from China spending £117 million in the UK in 2017. So the opportunity there is really exciting.”
For information on the Business Events Growth Programme visit www.visitbritain.org/event-support- programme-overview
Related
![Mod_(600×300)[1]](https://eventsbase.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Mod_600x3001.png "Triumphant finale for Mòd Paisley as flag is passed to Oban for 2024")
