London's business community was the target for Belfast's Visitor and Convention Bureau yesterday after attending the annual Destination Showcase event at Regent Street’s Café Royal.

In a bid to boost conference tourism to Belfast, the team from the Belfast Visitor and Convention Bureau (BVCB) joined over 120 conference and event planners from leading agencies at the event, which is now in its fifth year.

Commenting on the visit, Chief Executive Gerry Lennon said the show played an important role in attracting such tourism to Belfast.

“The conference market is our biggest growth area so it is vitally important that we pull out all the stops to attract more conferences to the city,” Mr Lennon said.

“Our figures show that approximately 38% of visitors to the city are here on business and crucially, those travelling to the city for conferences spend on average three times more than leisure visitors. The average spend is £177 per day and £629 per trip - representing very lucrative business for the city.

“Belfast hosted 43 conferences in 2003, with over 15,000 delegates and eight cruise ships docked here during July and August. Events like this are very important if we are to continue to increase the city’s profile and market share of this high spend market,” he added.

The high profile event was attended by local Tourism Minister, Ian Pearson who said the event had the potential to attract increasing numbers of conference visitors to the city.

"This is thanks to increasing market acceptability, investment in new and improved facilities and enhanced marketing of this sector by the Northern Ireland Tourist Board (NITB) and the BVCB," he added.

Yesterday's event was held on the same day figures showed that the number of tourists visiting Northern Ireland is expected to increase by up to 15% over the next year.

The NITB figures showed a visitor increase of 11% to 1.935 million, while holiday visits grew by 15% to 327,000.

Tourism revenue also jumped 4% in real terms, the lower growth rate reflecting changes in the average length of stay and increasing competitive pressures within tourism.

(MB)