Tourism Business Support Programme

The London Development Agency's (LDA) new Tourism Business Support Programme, also supported by Visit London, offers a range of free business support to help tourism businesses improve their quality, accessibility, resource efficiency and crisis management.

Accommodation Quality

Get London Graded. The LDA is offering an extensive support programme for accommodation businesses looking to improve quality and to become star rated in the national grading scheme run by the AA or VisitBritain. This support is open to ungraded accommodation businesses across London (apart from major international hotel chains).
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Capital Stay. This toolkit has been written for everyone who runs an accommodation business in London and is designed to help you improve the quality of your operation.  Available in pdf and word formats, it contains practical business ideas, interviews with successful London businesses and quick reference 60-second fact sheets on key business topics.
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Free workshops

Managing in a Downturn - 12th February 2009

The LDA is offering free half day workshops for businesses keen to improve resource efficiency, crisis management, accessibility and quality standards. Book now for the free crisis management workshop on 'Managing in a Downturn' on 12th February 2009.
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Green Tourism for London

Green Tourism for London, launched in October 2007, is targeted at hotels, guesthouses, attractions and event venues and offers ongoing advice and the chance to make substantial cost savings. With the help of an advisor, as a participating businessses you can work to achieve a bronze, silver or gold standard for your environmental performance and thus demonstrate your green credentials to your customers. The first 23 businesses in London received their awards in November 2008 at World Travel Market.
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London Open To All

London Open to All offers a package of free advice to help tourism businesses become fully accessible to visitors. It includes half-day workshops, subsidised training, access audits, advice to accommodation needing to complete their access statement prior to becoming star rated, and advice from a specialist architect on fitting new accessible facilities.
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Tourism Skills for London

A new skills strategy for the London hospitality and tourism sector called “Raising the Bar” was launched by People 1st in July 2007. As part of this, the LDA is funding training courses on Retention, Recruitment and Building the Skills Base Through Training. Our skills support also includes the launch of the new UK Skills Passport.
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London Listening 

Measuring what our visitors think of us and helping to resolve problems is easier now that the LDA and Visit London have launched the new central, advertised complaints handling service.
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Business As Usual

The LDA is offering crisis management advice to help tourism businesses prepare for the unexpected, with free workshops and a downloadable toolkit, Business As Usual.
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To print off information about the Towards 2012 Tourism Business Programme in pdf format, please click here