Conference Leeds, the Super Convention Bureau for Leeds and West Yorkshire are flying the flag for Bradford, as the city’s immense pace of development raises its national and international profile and puts it firmly on the UK conference industry map.

Bradford has one of the UK’s most ambitious regeneration programmes currently underway – valued at a colossal £3 billion. Developments include:

• A major city centre master plan with a £340 million retail heart, a unique 10 acre park which will contain 1 of the worlds largest city centre water features and a new business district

• International business park developer, ProLogis Developments is creating their biggest logistics centre in Europe, with familiar names such as Marks and Spencer already on board, creating 2,500 jobs

• An expanding technology sector centred around the University and Airedale Pace with global businesses such as Micro Technology, Filtronic and Power Wave

• Hotel and conference development continues to flourish with the Tomahawk group winning “Best Small Venue of the year” in the Yorkshire Insider Business Tourism Awards 2008 for their boutique style Great Victoria Hotel, the opening of the new Speed Master Conference Centre (including a state of the art showroom for classic cars), and major developments at West Yorkshire’s largest 2000 capacity venue the ALCC.

Bradford not only has a burgeoning business community but is rich in heritage too:

• the UNESCO world heritage site of Saltaire is less than 3 miles away

• Bradford’s Lister Park was voted Britain’s best park in 2007

• the city also came top of the environmental impact league in the Sustainable Cities index beating 20 other UK cities; two thirds of its 143 square miles is open countryside

• Bradford has a rich architecture with over 6,700 listed buildings more per head than in Manchester, Liverpool or Birmingham

Nicola Lockwood, Head of Conference Leeds said: “the pace of development and the vision in Bradford is fantastic, there are so many new and developing conference facilities that it is little wonder that it is attracting major conferences such as the AOG conference for 2000 delegates in May.”

Conference Leeds is supported by Yorkshire Forward, the regional development agency.


ENDS


EDITORS NOTES:
Nicola Lockwood is available for interview on 0113 220 6356,
email: nicola.lockwood@conference-leeds.com
About Conference Leeds

Conference Leeds is the organisation responsible for promoting meetings and events across Leeds and West Yorkshire. The recently restructured Conference Leeds is now a “super convention bureau” representing almost 250 venues across the area, responsible for marketing the West Yorkshire districts of Bradford, Wakefield, Kirklees and Calderdale.

Conference Leeds is a Leeds City Council organisation with funding from Yorkshire Forward, Bradford, Wakefield, Kirklees and Calderdale Councils.

Conference Leeds can offer a free venue finding service for anyone wanting to host an event in Leeds and West Yorkshire and markets the area through a series of initiatives.
Business tourism is worth over £450million a year in direct expenditure to the Yorkshire economy
About Yorkshire Forward
Conference Leeds is supported by Yorkshire Forward. Yorkshire Forward is the regional development agency for Yorkshire and the Humber, it exists to represent and help generate sustainable business for the region’s tourism industry, an industry worth £4.1billion to the region annually and employing over 165,000 people, making it one of the largest and fastest growing industries in the region. Yorkshire’s goal, as identified in Bold Vision, Bright Future - The Tourism Marketing Strategy for Yorkshire and Humber 2006 - 2010, is to achieve and increase in the value of tourism earnings to the region by 5% per annum to £5.9bn by 2010.