Choice Locations

I spent part of a morning one day last week viewing a country club hotel in the Midlands. It had been a few years since I was last there, but primarily it was an opportunity to meet the sales director, an old friend. Hence it was a gossip as much as anything else. We started discussing the industry in general – me from a booking agent’s point of view and she from an hotelier’s point of view.

Had I been to Confex? She wanted to know. Confex is the major conference venue exhibition and showcase held for three days every spring in London and her hotel group had not exhibited for several years. The show has been getting smaller and smaller over the last few years and, despite attempts by the organisers to breathe new life into it with an extensive seminar programme. It looked smaller than ever this year, although there was plenty of champagne on offer. I thought it had been a big disappointment and that perhaps exhibitions such as this had run their course.

Exhibitions are no longer a forum for launching new ideas when you can do it a lot quicker and target your audience more effectively on the web at a fraction of the price. She agreed. She thought it was a circus dominated by industry ‘insiders’ that generated little genuine business and a lot of irritation to ‘outsiders’. It no longer attracted the major hotel groups. It was basically kept afloat by the local authority-run conference bureaux that form the nucleus of exhibitors and don’t appear to judge its benefits by the economics of the real world. We both agreed there was a need for some kind of face- to-face forum where buyer meets seller in a pleasant atmosphere to exchange ideas and business – perhaps there is a need to reinvent ‘the exhibition’ in a different format.

Those of us who judge the success of a meeting by the quality of food on offer will greet the news that day delegate rates are dropping as a result of the ‘credit crunch’ with a degree of anxiety. It may be good news for the procurement departments but surely lower rates must result in lower standards, particularly to the amount of food on offer? Is the two-course lunch being replaced by ‘lite-bites’? Not at the Wyboston Lakes Conference Centre.

They have just launched The Willows – a ‘premium-price’ conference centre with a day delegate rate at £21.00 and a residential rate at £81.00 plus VAT in both cases. The Willows was a dedicated training centre for the police force and the anti-terror squad with a security system to match. They have just moved out. Wyboston have now decided to promote the freed-up space in The Willows to the corporate market with ‘eye-catchingly’ low rates.  It is a marketing ploy with the Willows at the budget-end of the market complimenting their up-scale Robinson Executive Centre and the mid-market Willows Conference Centre. They are all on the same site just off the A1 on the Cambridge/Bedfordshire border.

I went to view the facilities recently and they are very good – once you get past the security system that was still in place at the time. There is a range of fully equipped meeting rooms; good standard bedrooms, all en-suite, with just a few single-bedded ones; complimentary wi-fi throughout and pretty good leisure facilities on the campus including the golf course. It represents very good value for money – and you can get an excellent sea-bass risotto in the restaurant for lunch dispelling any notion of ‘lite-bites’.

We always think twice before suggesting a football stadium for a conference. They tend to unleash tribal loyalties which can affect attendances and hence the success of an event. So it proved last week when I was invited to sample the new menus at Old Trafford. It is a tough job but someone has to do it. I hadn’t seen their new meeting rooms before, particularly the 1200-seater Manchester Suite. It seemed like a good idea to go along reacquaint myself with the Club’s conference package. This was much to the disgust of a colleague, a passionate Manchester City supporter.

The event involved checking the located on three sides of the ground with diversions such as a pitch side inspection and a trophy cabinet viewing. However, because there was a food and drink station at each stopping point, the meeting facilities didn’t seem quite as disjointed, as would otherwise be the case. But that is just carping. The facilities are extensive and very good. Manchester United was one of the first to ‘set out its stall’ to attract the corporate meetings market and they do it very well. Nonetheless, I hadn’t realised quite what an attraction the ‘Theatre of Dreams’ has now become. There were plenty of tourists inside and outside the ground.

The conference team at the club did a good job on the day. It was a useful visit and the food and drink were quite good as well. Following Manchester United’s two recent league defeats, my colleague is now convinced my visit has put a curse on the club. ‘Would it be possible for you to go down every Friday afternoon and perhaps squeeze in a weekly visit to Stamford Bridge and the Emirates Stadium as well?’ he now wants to know.