2017 has been an exciting year so far, with London recently crowned the best European city to do business in and retaining fifth place in the International Congress and Convention Association's (ICCA) rankings.
We were delighted to see Excel London named ‘Venue of the Year’ at the recent AEO Awards. We were also thrilled to see 17 customers making the shortlist, with five of them taking top honours on the night.
The economic impact for the UK, with an influx of new events, should not be underestimated and I am enormously proud that the events hosted with us, at Excel, contribute £4.5bn in economic impact and support 37,600 jobs.
We have already welcomed a wide variety of world leading events to Excel this year from Bett, ICE Totally Gaming and Grand Designs Live to Adobe Summit, Oracle’s Modern Business Experience, the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC), Google and the European Association of Urology (EAU).
More recently, we’ve seen the return of London Tech Week, Europe’s largest festival of technology. Each year, we now host over 30 technology-focused events, welcoming 300,000 professionals in the sector.
London is a global hub for technology, innovation and talent, with the fastest growing ITC sector in Europe. The likes of Facebook, Google, Snap, Apple and Twitter have demonstrated their confidence in London with long term commitments to open offices and recruit more people.
It has been our aspiration to attract world leading technology events to London, working closely with our clients to support their vision for growth. We are now home to more specialist technology events than any other venue in the world and will continue to invest in our infrastructure to support our clients in delivering exceptional event outcomes.
London also continues to benefit from investment in creating better and greener transport links, a greater range of accommodation, alongside new attractions, venues and restaurants. The greatest example of this is undoubtedly Crossrail.
When Crossrail opens next year, London will be the best-connected city in the world, with unrivalled transport connections. It will be a fantastic enabler for events, allowing people to move around the city in record time, including travelling direct to Excel from Heathrow in just 43-minutes.
With a commitment from us and our service partners to provide commercial certainty and value there has never been a better time to consider London for your next event.
I look forward to welcoming you to Excel London soon.
