The UK corporate hospitality market saw a sharp decline during the recession with many marketers deciding to focus their shrinking marketing budgets solely on activities that would help lead generation . Hospitality was often seen as something nice to do and not business critical so many hospitality events were either cancelled or put on hold.
The latest market report from Market and Business Development has shown that the UK market is once again investing in hospitality and we can expect to see an increase of 2% during 2011. Whilst this is an increase it is minimal and where we will really see a sharp increase is during 2012 when hospitality spend is predicted to increase by 8%.
Lilah Walker, International Events Director at MOI said, “this news has come as no surprise as we are seeing an increase in spend for hospitality from clients across the world. My advice to marketers who are not currently thinking about corporate hospitality is to add this back into your marketing plan and where possible make sure you have a strong theme that underpins and compliments your marketing messages with your hospitality programme. For our UK based clients who are considering hospitality around the 2012 Olympic Games then I would strong recommend you engage a professional agency NOW as I predict that the challenge will be availability for venues and hospitality packages in London whilst the games are on.”
To find out more about MBD and to see the full report please visit http://www.marketresearch.com/vendors/viewVendor.asp?VendorID=1515
