The Events Industry Alliance (EIA) has welcomed the findings of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, which, after concluding its inquiry into ‘major events’, has made several key recommendations for how the UK government can better support the business events sector. The inquiry, led by Dame Caroline Dinenage, was launched in July 2025 and set out to examine the challenges the industry faces and consider how the sector can tap into new opportunities for growth. In December 2025, EIA director, Rachel Parker, gave oral evidence to the Committee, setting out the sector’s concerns across certain areas, whilst outlining a blueprint for growth and more effective working with government.
The Committee has now published its recommendations, aimed at helping the sector to fulfil its growth potential. It calls for ministers to take a more structured approach to attending major events, for responsibility for the sector to be transferred to the Department for Business and Trade, and for the government to formally recognise its value by commissioning a dedicated business events strategy.
The Events Industry Alliance strongly endorses all three recommendations. Ministerial attendance is not merely symbolic. Confirmed early, attendance helps organisers attract international counterparts, investors and senior delegates, and strengthens an event’s commercial and diplomatic pull.
Designating the Department for Business and Trade as the lead department for business events would recognise the sector’s role as an enabler of the Industrial Strategy’s eight growth sectors and the government’s wider growth agenda. It would help the sector achieve its own growth ambitions and more actively underpin and promote other sectors vital to UK prosperity.
Rachel Parker, director, EIA, added: “I am grateful to the Committee for taking the time to better understand the sector and for producing recommendations that offer a clear and constructive way forward. The evidence is overwhelming, and the opportunity is real. What the sector needs now is for government to match the Committee’s ambition with action: a clear strategy, consistent ministerial backing, and an end to cuts that pull in the opposite direction.”
Evidence to the Committee confirmed that the Growth Programme delivered a 35:1 return on investment, bringing around £60 million of business to the UK in the last year alone.
A government strategy would be further recognition of the sector’s economic potential, and a signal of intent to increase the UK’s $60bn share of a $1.6 trillion market. With the sector growing at 5% per year, the opportunity is immense, but it requires an honest appraisal of what is needed if it is to continue competing internationally. This is the kind of coherent, joined-up thinking that a dedicated government strategy can provide, which is why countries like Germany and Ireland have roadmaps to 2030. It’s time the UK started to treat business events with the same level of seriousness.
The prize on offer has been further underlined over the past quarter, where four of the ten largest exhibition groups in the world have been sold, including the British companies CloserStill and Hyve. At $1.8 billion, $1.8 billion and $1.5 billion, three of these rank among the four largest deals in the history of the exhibition industry.
It’s vital the government seizes this opportunity. Yet, as the findings note, recent developments suggest it’s retreating, right at the moment it should be leaning in. The clearest example is VisitBritain, where the Business Events team is being cut from nine staff to two, the Head of Business Events post is being made redundant, and the successful Business Events Growth Programme is being discontinued. Evidence to the Committee confirmed that the Growth Programme delivered a 35:1 return on investment, bringing around £60 million of business to the UK in the last year alone.
These cuts sit awkwardly alongside the commitments ministers made to this same Committee on stronger cross-government coordination, removing the very infrastructure needed to deliver them. Nor is the problem isolated: London & Partners, home of the London Convention Bureau, is also restructuring and reducing activity this year as its funding changes. The Committee’s recommendations offer a clear way forward, and the EIA stands ready to work with government to act on them.
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