12/02/2009

The survey's two main aims were to record the types of business events happening in the city and to provide the best possible estimates for volume and value of the market.  Results reveal that business tourism for the city generated £132.4 million worth of direct value to venues in York in 2007.

This is a significant increase on the 2006 figures where the overall economic impact was £98.4 million - an increase of nearly 35% on the previous year or £34 million.  The impressive results are due to an increase in the number of businesses bookings - both non-residential and residential events in York - and an increase in the average residential rate. 

57% of conference business in York was undertaken on a day basis, 43% of events involved an overnight stay; this is higher than the previous year when only a third of events involved an overnight stay.  Good news for the city's business tourism is the finding that York's conference delegates were more likely to be staying overnight than  other delegates attending conferences in the rest of the region or in the rest of the UK (based on regional and UK averages).  

Over 1.3 million delegates attended events in York, generating over 1.8 million delegate days - an increase of .2m delegate days from the previous year.

Kate McMullen, Marketing Manager for Visit York said, 'we're delighted by these results.  Conferences and meetings generate important revenue for York and we should not underestimate the economic impact that business tourism has on the city.  This is a market with growth potential, particularly as the results show that York can attract more overnight stays in this market than most other UK destinations.  We need now to build on our success so far and to strengthen our offer to conference organisers.'

There were an estimated 34,635 business events in York in 2007 - an average of 610 events per venue, this is significantly higher than the previous year, when the total number of business events was 25,800 - an average of 437 events per venue.

The majority of events (85%) were conferences and meetings. Banquets and dinners made up 14% of all events and exhibitions about 1%. This was a similar breakdown in comparison to the previous year.   80% of all events were held in hotels.

The average event duration was 1.6 days, this is slightly higher than the regional average of 1.5 but in line with the national average of 1.6 days.  The average daily delegate rate achieved by venues for conferences was £36, the average 24 hour/residential rate was £142 and the average rate for banquets, dinners and receptions was £27.

The average event size was 35 delegates and most events (72%) had 50 or less delegates - nearly 10% had more than 100 delegates. This was a similar profile to the previous year, but lower than the Yorkshire (43 delegates) and UK (50 delegates) averages.  

The most common conference size in York was 8 to 20 delegates (37% of the city's conferences). 35% of the city's conferences were between 21-50 delegates in size, this is higher than the Yorkshire and UK averages. Only 1% of York's conferences had 200 or more delegates compared to 5% in Yorkshire and 6% nationally, this may reflect the lack of venues in the city which are able to host such large numbers.

Venues highlighted that, on average, nearly half (47%) of their business (in terms of number of events) was from York itself, with a further 32% from the Yorkshire region and about a fifth (18%)  from further afield in the UK, and 3% from overseas.

Venues had mixed opinions about the prospects for 2008, with 36.8% predicting that business would be up whereas 36.8% felt that business would go down.

Venues were asked to rate a number of services provided by Visit York on a simple scale (unimportant, quite important, very important).  The majority of Conference York services were rated as ‘quite' to ‘very important'. The most highly rated services included general marketing and PR activity of York as a business tourism destination, direct bookings via Conference York and venue details and special offers on www.conferenceyork.com   £5.3 million worth of conference business was generated directly and booked in by the Visit York conference desk. 

ENDS

For more information, please contact Kay Hyde, PR Manager, Visit York, Tel: 01904 554451, email: kh@visityork.org