Making The Business Travel Show 2023 brighter

The ExCeL at Royal London Dock - attended by the Brighter Events team – was the venue for this year’s Business Travel Show Europe.

It’s always great to be a part of one of the biggest events in the travel industry and this year was no different.

We enjoyed many meetings and appointments with current clients, and potentially new ones, and have already liaised with them since.

And over the course of the show, we were inspired further to continue making sure We Don’t Do Dull when it comes to event planning.

More than 3,000 corporate travel industry delegates attended the event which was running alongside The Meetings Show and the TravelTech Show.

Airlines set up camp next to accommodation providers, while travel tech and TMCs were side by side with car rental and credit card firms.

And TransPennine Express, LNER, Avanti, South Western Railway and Great Western Railway all took part in the Rail Zone.

They told us:

“We were thrilled to be part of the Rail Zone stand at the Business Travel Show 2023 with other industry colleagues. It was an excellent opportunity to engage with customers from various sectors to discuss business travel by rail. The Rail Zone brought together rail industry collaboration, providing a ‘one-stop shop’ for customers who are committed to travelling by rail and ensuring their domestic travel programmes include one of the most sustainable modes of transport within the UK. The show was as busy as ever and we had lots of appointments and visitors onto our rail-zone stand. Sustainability, industrial action and GWR routes were the main topics of conversation, and the follow-up since the show has been excellent with more in-depth rail meetings as a result.”

Destinations were also prominent with appearances to promote places including Scotland, Isle of Man, Alton Towers Resort and Amsterdam Conference Centre to the Algarve, Malta, and Malaysia as well as Tottenham Hotspur and Wembley stadiums.

We took the opportunity to chat with most of these businesses at the show, including some we currently work with, and have worked with in the past, and they are all looking forward to the future following a tough few years.

We were all in agreement that offering the best personal service is still the top priority.

Laura Davis, National Account Director for Leonardo Hotels, said:

"Wow, what can I say? Our industry is back in full force. The Business Travel Show was an amazing show and it was so busy from start to finish. It was great to catch up with some old faces and many new faces from TMCs to buyers. Everyone was on their game. It was great to see the Clarity guys from their account managers to the Brighter Events team as we always have massive support from them all.”

And Brit McLaren, Senior Sales Executive – Events – at Tottenham Hotspur Football & Athletic Co Ltd, said:

“The show was great, we made lots of new connections and caught up with some familiar faces.”

In total, more than 200 corporate travel suppliers exhibited at the show where delegates had the chance to talk shop over the course of two days.

There was also a pre-show conference for hosted buyers which proved a huge success.

Broadcast journalist Jon Sopel then officially opened the show at a welcome event.

Pat McDonagh, CEO of Brighter Events’ sister company Clarity, said:

“It was great to have the Brighter Events team at the show ready to talk all things from venue find through to conferences, incentives and even larger events. The expertise and passion of the team shone through with no brief too challenging or unusual for our experienced team of experts.”

And Paul Casement, Brighter Events’ Director of Sales and Account Management, said after the event:

“It was well attended with good quality connections and it was great to catch up with old friends and contacts in the industry.”

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