Visit London, the official visitor organisation for the UK’s capital has announced plans to engage with the Latin American business market over the next 12 months. The long-haul strategic campaign will be created in collaboration with AV Business & Communications, an established Marketing Communications and Event Agency based in Argentina. The collaboration is hoped to further build Visit London’s understanding of the Latin America market as well as raising the profile of London as a key business destination.

Visit London’s long haul marketing strategy already includes engaging with markets in North America and Asia Pacific and will now also concentrate on the growing business in Latin America. AV Business and Communications will be working in partnership with the Visit London team to help provide local knowledge insight into the business market in Latin America which continues to evolve and develop at a rapid pace.

For Latin America, Western Europe is the third most popular choice of destination (after inter-continent travel within Latin America as the most popular and the USA as the second most popular). Flights from Buenos Aires to London via British Airways are only 14 hours, which makes it a key destination for both leisure and business travellers. In recent IPS figures 13% of travel from Brazil to the UK was for business purposes, and this accounted for 21% of spend in 2008 and in the same year 14% of travel from Argentina to the UK was for business purposes, which accounted for 27% of spend (IPS).

As part of the development in the market Chris FJ Lynn, Visit London’s Sales & Marketing Director, North America & Long Haul and UK based DMC company Spectra will be working together to create a two free educational seminars, one in San Paulo, and the other in Buenos Aires. The seminars, which will be entitled ‘See the World, Visit London, An International Events Perspective’ will give local event buyers and planners a chance to hear about all of the benefits of brining events to London as well as hearing about all the new products, hotels and events which are taking place in the capital over the next few years – including the regeneration of East London and the 2012 London Olympics.

Commenting on Visit London’s engagement programme in Latin America Lynn said: “Over the last six months we have seen a significant increase in business enquiries from the Latin American market. One particular example was the contacts we made at the trade show EIBTM last year, where the biggest increase in enquiries was in Latin American. Because of this growth in interest we decided to partner with a local agency to gain further knowledge of the market. We are extremely excited about working with AV Business & Communications to create the educational seminars, which will hopefully give local events planners, a real taste for what’s happening in London and how it can benefit their businesses in the future.”

The educational events will take place on the following dates:

Buenos Aires, Argentina
Monday, 3rd May 2010

San Paulo, Brazil
Thursday, 6th May 2010

For more information and to register you interest in attending the events – go to:
[email protected]

Paul Miller, Managing Director of SPECTRA commented: “SPECTRA are delighted to participate with the Visit London Latin America Engagement Programme in May.  This opportunity will allow us to market our well-established successful DMC services in the UK, for which SPECTRA is renowned, to this region. Visiting and presenting our company directly to the buyers in this growing market provides us with the chance to build on established relationships and make new ones. At SPECTRA we have recently renewed our promise to deliver unbeatable service with a commitment to our clients:  ‘One Company – One Promise’ – WE WILL, WE CAN, WE DO!”

Alan Ramirez, who will be attending from SPECTRA added: “We have some exciting messages from London right now – I honestly believe there’s never been a better time to consider London as a destination with the offer of incredible value, the changes as we gear up for the Olympics (with 13,500 new hotel bedrooms coming on stream between now and 2012, the increased hotel supply will make for a great choice of new hotels).  London is forever reinventing itself with a constant stream of new and exciting venues and programme ingredients and SPECTRA’s excellent value incentive programmes prepared for this visit will serve as an illustration of how affordable a programme to London can be”.
Lynn concluded ” For 2010 our key message is the new content that London has to offer – new transport, regeneration and major business benefits such as ExCeL phase two opening and the wealth of new hotels opening this year such as Park Plaza Westminster Bridge. We will also be highlighting the major business objectives and hospitality offerings for London both pre and post 2012 Olympics.”