THE MEETING PLACE IN BRIEF
• liverpool Convention Bureau has joined forces with 27 venues to create a Liverpool Small Meetings Package offering a tiered scheme of day delegate rates starting from £17.50. The aim is to offer added value to those booking events for smaller numbers with inclusions such as a team-building crafts session, a cocktail demonstration, a stadium tour at Anfield – the home of Liverpool Football Club – and complimentary entry into the Beatles Story.
• menzies Flitwick Manor Hotel has launched a residential package for the meeting and events market. Prices start at £2,495 + VAT for full 24-hour exclusive use of the hotel, with 48-hour rates available at £4,750 + VAT. The property is situated close to the M1 and is a Georgian Manor House Hotel with 18 bedrooms.
• the Howard Assembly Room in Leeds is now available for commercial hire. Run by Opera North, the fully- refurbished Victorian music hall can now be used as a venue for banquets, conferences and corporate events. It is 15 minutes’ walk from Leeds train station and close to the city centre ring road.
• oseA Island, a private island in the Thames Estuary, is now available as an exclusive conference and events venue. The island's grand Edwardian seaside residence has ten five-star bedrooms and rooms for up to 22 people to meet and dine. A full butler service and dedicated team of chefs are part of the package.
• swissôtel Hotels & Resorts has launched a new meetings portal –
www.swissotelmeetings.com – designed to offer a time-saving booking process. New features include a venue comparison tool to help check capacity and availability.
• De vere Venues has joined forces with The Studio and the Commonwealth Club to strengthen its Preferred Partners programme for the meeting, conference and training market. The Studio in Birmingham and Manchester, along with Searcys Commonwealth Club in London, represent high-profile additions to De Vere Venue’s 34-strong venue portfolio.
• the four-star Menzies East Cliff Court Hotel in Bournemouth has added a new event space to its meetings and events facilities. The new Ocean Suite boasts floor-to-ceiling windows with sea views and balcony access. Facilities include a 60-inch LCD television with laptop connectivity, plus leather boardroom chairs and stylish conference tables. There are 67 guest rooms and six further meeting rooms.
BTMS NEWS
➔ Getting it together
HBAA UPDATE
PETER DUCKER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, HOTEL BOOKING AGENTS ASSOCIATION
CORPORATES can now integrate their teleconferen-
cing content into the GetThere tool, giving buyers live availability on both their own in-house meeting facilities and local hotels, and VC availability if the company has no in-house facilities. The system, called Virtual Meetings, will embed travel policy and calculate the estimated savings of booking a meeting out of house, using visual guilt to drive compliance. The system
creates exception reports and incorporates a pre-meeting approval facility. “It’s obvious that millions of dollars spent on videoconferencing need to be retrieved and we’ve recognised this need in the marketplace,” says Jason Geall, director of GetThere. “The unique element is that travel content and virtual meetings content are now in one place.” Virtual Meetings is being tested currently and will be rolled out by the year's end.
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
BTMS NEWS
HRG was showing off a new meetings management tool
at BTMS, one of a raft of tech- nology announcements made by the TMC at the show. Based on ’scenario modelling’,
the new facility enables corporates to find the most cost-effective way of meeting colleagues across the world by analysing historical travel patterns and spend. It also factors in the number of people travelling from each destination and subsequently calculates the most cost-effective destination in which to meet. The conclusion is based on criteria such as 24-hour and day delegate rates and average spend on 3,500 routes and transient hotel rates. HRG says the technology was originally developed following the requirements of a global banking client and is expected to save them in the region of 20 per cent on their meetings spend. Paul Dear, HRG's director of
client consultancy, says, “People tend to choose sales conference destinations, for example, on the basis of where they would like to meet – Dubai last year, New York or Barcelona this year – rather than the most cost-effective place. “Our new scenario modelling
tool makes savings easier to identify, as it uses a company’s unique travel information and then advises on the most cost- effective city to hold a meeting or event,” says Dear. HRG’s director of events and meetings management, David Battley, adds, “As most event agencies work nationally or regionally, large organisations are asking travel management companies to provide strategic meetings management programmes globally. HRG is at the forefront of this delivery, offering leading-edge technology and a universal service spread to our clients.“
I'VE JUST been reading recent TRI hospitality Hotstats looking at data for 2010. Erudite pundits will analyse them in great detail, I’m sure, but I have read them with my Hotel Booking Agent head on. The headlines are that London enjoyed a great year, seeing occupancy rise slightly (two per cent) but with strong rises in both average room rate (up 8.9 per cent to £124.20) and RevPAR (£102.10, up 11.6 per cent). The “provinces” enjoyed no such growth, with occupancy up slightly (1.6 per cent) but the average rate dropped (£68.20, down 0.9 per cent). Revpar increased by 1.5 per cent. Of course, headlines don’t tell the whole story. London is more than the West End, and the “provinces” is a massive generalisation. London’s growth was based more
on leisure than corporate growth, and many hoteliers recognise that while good times are good times, they will feel more secure with a better balance in their business mix. They know how fragile the UK business economy is, and are keen to keep their share as it starts to grow. There is nothing but good news on
their radar: a spring boost from the Royal Wedding and a perfect storm of business in Summer 2012, with the Diamond Jubilee followed by Farnborough, then the Olympics and Paralympics. These are one-off events that will do little to cement their long- term bedrock of business – while hoteliers love to make hay when the sun shines they also like to look after their seed corn. So while rates are increasing they are trying to maintain a balance. In times like these, flexible pricing and BAR programmes help the wily corporate to work with their agent and hotel suppliers to avoid the hot dates and secure best value whenever possible. The provinces, on the other hand,
did see modest growth in corporate and meetings business last year, and is hoping to see that trend continue in 2011. They always exist outside the bubble of London, and only some- times benefit from a halo effect of displaced business. I expect to see hotels in the regions working very hard to win more meetings and event business, delivering rate, service and innovative value added packages as the market strengthens.
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