IMEX - The British capital's new promotional agency London & Partners' Head of Business Tourism Europe, Barbara Jamison, told an IMEX press conference 25 May that the city was "the best big city on earth".

She outlined plans to market London as the new technology capital and said the city was "focussing hard on our biggest growth industry, technology". London's IT sector was the largest in Europe, Jamison claimed, with the capital hosting 20,000 IT companies.

Jamison said London was expecting 15 per cent of Olympic revenues to flow in pre-Games opening and 31 per cent to come during London 2012. Over half (54%) the expected revenues attributable to the Games would come post-event and include a big events legacy, she believed.

Jamison spoke about the shift of the capital's axis to the east, where a 700 per cent growth in technology companies opening up offices had been witnessed.

Jamison said the East London Tech City Cluster was now home to 250 technology companies, including Siemens which was investing £30m (US$48m) in a new building, the Siemens Pavilion. The new complex would include conference and events centre for the company's own internal use.

Jamison claimed that London was receiving full political backing for its business events strategy, although no UK politicians turned up for the IMEX Politicians' Forum and London & Partners itself is operating on a reduced budget, following the old tourism board, Visit London, going into administration recently.

Excel London's MD David Pegler also told the press conference that his ICC venue was currently hosting Europe's largest medical convention, Eular 2011, with 18,000 delegates and use of three-quarters of the venue's exhibition space.

"Excel London will host seven Olympic sports," said Pegler who predicted the recent Digital London Summit launch show would go on to become a major European technology congress.

"Both Nokia and Cisco had seen 50 per cent increases in delegate numbers to recent conferences held at Excel, Pegler said, "the UK's most technologically advanced venue".

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