Cheltenham is targeting one of the hardest-hit sectors of the economy with the launch of a new initiative to support the recovery of the town's tourism market.

Meet in Cheltenham, led by Marketing Cheltenham, is designed to attract more conference, meeting and event business to the area.

It follows last month's launch of We're Moving to Cheltenham, which aims to highlight investment and growth to help attract more businesses to the town.

Fresh initiative to keep Cheltenham moving 

The new Meet in Cheltenham website will provide free venue finding for businesses of all sizes or planners looking to bring events to the town, be it large delegate conferences to small meetings and team away days.

Meet in Cheltenham, which has more than 20 venues involved and more expected to join, will help to source accommodation, event space and suppliers, as well as practical destination support and advice.

Marketing Cheltenham manager David Jackson said: "The business tourism market is worth upwards of £40million to Cheltenham's economy, so our Meet in Cheltenham initiative comes just at the right time to support our venues and suppliers to bounce back after a really challenging year.

"With the superb range of venues and event spaces we have in Cheltenham and Gloucestershire as a whole, coupled with the new investment that's coming in, particularly around cyber, there's undoubtedly a huge opportunity for Cheltenham and the wider region to capitalise on the corporate event and conference market."

Business tourism contributed more than £8billion to the UK economy in 2018.

Peter Hendry, interim cluster general manager from Jurys Inn, said: "We know that Cheltenham has lacked a centralised conference desk for a number of years, so the creation of the new Meet in Cheltenham venue finding service was something we've been pushing for for some time.

"We're looking forward to working with the team at Marketing Cheltenham to really capitalise on the pent-up demand for corporate events into 2021 and beyond and to really put Cheltenham back on the map as a major UK conference and business tourism destination."