It's a busy few weeks for the English UK team as it concentrates on marketing to the Asia Pacific region in a series of events.

"This is a market with a great deal of potential and it makes sense for us to focus intensively on agents, agent associations and British Council offices there to spread the word about the quality and variety of what our member centres can offer," said Annie Wright, Deputy Chief Executive of English UK, who leads our International Team.

The first event in the series is an agent seminar and networking evening, co-hosted with the British Council Japan and the Japan Association of Overseas Studies in Tokyo. The agent seminar, titled Latest Developments in the UK ELT Sector, includes speeches by our Chief Executive, Eddie Byers, and several board members, followed by a networking event attended by 24 Japanese agents and 18 English UK member centres.

The following day sees the start of our annual English UK Fair for the region, in the Japanese city of Kyoto. These three-day Fairs are always very popular, and the English UK Fair Kyoto event is full, with 35 member centres, 45 agents from the region, exhibitors from five organisations including local agent associations, and regional British Council representatives.

The focus switches to China the following week, with the sixth British Council/English UK China Road Show for summer school programmes. This is another very popular event, both with members and with agents in China.

This year we're taking 25 English UK members to Beijing, Chengdu and Shenzhen, where they'll met 240 local agents. Chengdu is a new destination for us, chosen because of a new direct British Airways service to the city. The trip will also include meetings with the local British Council staff as well as the chief executive of New Oriental, the biggest ELT provider in the country and also one of our Partner Agencies.

Finally, the week of October 20 sees our autumn inward mission bring agents from the Asia Pacific region to London and the Home Counties. Twelve agents will attend two days of mini-workshops with 22 of our member centres. The group will then visit seven English UK member centres in London, Berkshire and Sussex, with a welcome reception and dinner hosted by the British Council and a farewell dinner hosted by English UK London.