YORK is to be showcased in London as an ideal destination for meetings and conferences.

VisitYork4Meetings, part of the tourism organisation Visit York, will hold an exclusive ‘two hours from London’ dinner at the capital's prestigious Science Museum next month.

The event will be part of International Confex Week 2015, the UK’s leading event for the Meetings, Incentives, Conference and Events industry (MICE), attracting conference and meetings buyers from across the globe.

VisitYork4Meetings will be joined by The Royal York Hotel, The Grand Hotel & Spa, National Railway Museum, Park Inn by Radisson, York Racecourse and East Coast Trains.

Buyers will later have the opportunity to travel with East Coast Trains to York to experience the city for themselves.

Marketing manager for VisitYork4Meetings, Laura Freer, said York was home to an impressive range of state of the art and unusual conference venues.

"We’ll be using this opportunity to drive home the message that York is under two hours from London by train.’’

More than 16,000 meetings, conferences and events are said to take place in York each year, with business tourism generating £148.9 million in income for hotels, venues and auxiliary services - equal to a quarter of the total £606 million annual visitor spend.

The Liberal Democrats brought their spring conference to York for the first time in the party’s history last year, when 1,400 delegates travelled to the city for the three-day event, contributing well over £600,000 to the local economy.

A Science Museum Group spokesman said the dinner would also be a great opportunity to jointly showcase two of its venues, the Science Museum and also the National Railway Museum in York, to senior London buyers and corporate markets.

Sara Borland, of East Coast Trains, said it was delighted to join the dinner, at which it will drive home the message that it runs fast and frequent trains to York from London King's Cross in just under two hours.