First ever World Screen Tourism Summit coming to Birmingham

The first-ever World Screen Tourism Summit – SET-JET25 – has been announced for Birmingham in late 2025.

It takes place on Friday 21 November 2025 at the International Convention Centre, Birmingham.

The World Screen Tourism Summit is designed to showcase UK and international best practice in the growing market for “set-jetting”, the phenomenon of tourism to locations seen on films and TV.

Set-jetting has been named by numerous tour operators and consultancies as one of the top global travel trends for 2025.

The Summit is aimed at tourism operators, destination and attraction marketing directors, hotel groups, and screen and film commissions from the UK and overseas.

Invitations will be sent worldwide in the new year, says organiser, Martin Evans, Managing Partner of The Tourism Business.

This company also founded the annual UK National Hotel Marketing Conference, it curates the programme for VAC, the annual conference for visitor attractions, and ran the London International Film Tourism Conference on two previous occasions.

The World Screen Tourism Summit will hear from expert speakers on film tourism marketing, destination branding, PR and social media campaign development.

The Summit will be supported by lead partners West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA), West Midlands Growth Company, VisitBritain and the British Film Commission.

Host city, Birmingham was chosen from a shortlist of key cities which demonstrated strong tourism product and screen heritage.

The Summit’s launch comes at the end of one of the most important years ever for screen tourism, with movies like “Paddington in Peru” and “Gladiator II”, and TV series like “Emily in Paris”, “Bridgerton” and “The White Lotus” having galvanised consumers.

Richard Parker, Mayor of the West Midlands, said: “The global success of Peaky Blinders has shone a spotlight on our region’s rich history, architecture, and iconic canals. Hosting the first-ever World Screen Tourism Summit is a fantastic opportunity to build on that momentum.”

We’re working hard to make it easier for filmmakers to bring their productions here, tapping into our talented workforce and driving investment.”

VisitBritain CEO Patricia Yates said: “We know films and TV shows are powerful motivators for travel and we’re delighted to support the World Screen Tourism Summit in Birmingham. This is a valuable opportunity to hear from creative industry leaders and destinations on harnessing opportunities.”

It is also timely as we gear up to launch our ‘Starring GREAT Britain’ campaign in January 2025, which sees Britain the star of the show.”

“Our research shows more than 9-out-of-10 potential visitors to the UK would be keen to visit film and TV locations and places seen-on-screen.”

Speakers for the World Screen Tourism Summit will be announced in January, and a website will be set up for tourism and screen industry practitioners to register for the event.