A PLACE FOR EVERYTHING

There is competition in the conference field between hotels, purpose-built centres, and older buildings such as converted stately homes. Each has advantages which it is trying to exploit to win a greater share of business.

It must have seemed like the perfect place for a conference, a plush Edwardian hotel in a small Northern Irish town on the edge of the Mountains of Mourne, fronting onto miles of golden sands.

No electricity though. Unfortunately that was the year the Ulster power workers went on strike – which meant no lights (just storm lanterns), the telephone switchboard out of action, no power in the kitchens and, of course, no overhead projectors.

Actually, the conference ended up being quite successful: the staff coped brilliantly; the power came back on the second day; and the hundreds of delegates, who had spent the first day either wandering around the countryside or holed up in a lantern-lit bar getting to know each other, had a far better time than if they had to work the whole weekend.

Hotels offer the sort of ambience that purpose-built conference centres all too often lack. Had this particular conference been taking place in a modern conference centre, it is difficult to imagine how the delegates would have kept themselves amused until the power returned.

On the other hand, many purpose-built conference centres would have some form of back-up generator that could have avoided the basic problem in the first place.

This particular (true) story highlights some of the main differences between hotels and purpose-built centres, or converted stately homes as venues for conferences.

Take the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, for example. Originally built to host top-level government meetings, it was encouraged to start generating income from the private sector about eight years ago. Although officially run by civil servants, it now very much competes with all the other conference venues in the country. More than half of the 700-to-800 events it hosts a year are corporate meetings of one form or another – annual general meetings, sales meetings, product launches and training sessions.

It can host meetings for groups of 30 to more than 300, and can also offer extremely sophisticated facilities – even including a television studio and editing suite in the basement. And, as a government-built conference centre that has hosted some hugely important international summits, it offers complete security.

Gill Price, the QEII centre’s commercial director, believes that a purpose-built centre has an in-built advantage over a hotel as a venue. She says: “Everything we have here is geared towards the conference business and ancilliary services. We don’t do anything else.”

She admits, though, that hotels are fighting back: “I have to say, in defence of hotels, that many have realised they have to concentrate on their conference services if they are to compete.”

One objection that is often voiced to using the QEII centre, and many other government or local government-backed venues, is that the management has a certain civil service mentality, however.

John Fisher, managing director of Page & Moy Marketing, a major UK conference organiser, believes hotels are often more customer service-oriented than many conference centres.

He says: “The main conference centres have been built for the purpose intended, and work very well on a practical level. I doubt anyone would quibble that the International Convention Centre in Birmingham doesn’t have all the power points in the right place.”

But, he adds: “The big issue is the personnel who help us put together a conference or event. Convention staff may be trained to deal with the practicalities of the core business – but most are unable to cope with motivation and incentive events, where numbers of delegates may change from day to day, where a programme of events may be changed at the last possible moment and where people must be treated as individuals rather than groups. Faced with a straight choice, I’d opt for hotels simply because their staff are much more switched onto what the corporate agency or buyer wants – and, unlike most convention centres, they’re hungry for business.”

Not everyone agrees with this point of view, however. Indeed, one industry insider says the reverse is true – that, as the conference industry comes out of recession, it is the popular hotel venues that are being more awkward. He says: “Now demand is picking up, some hotels are being bloody rude. Some of the country’s top hotels have got a bloody awful reputation.”

Indeed, although Price admits she is officially a civil servant, her background is in the conference industry. And she dismisses criticisms of the QEII. “The organisation went to conference experts for advice and, as a result, you’ve got the best of both worlds.”

Most of the country’s major dedicated conference venues have brought in specialist advisers from the industry to make sure they have the right facilities on offer. For example, conference production company Spectrum Communications was an adviser to the ICC in Birmingham for five years, and has more recently been advising the new Edinburgh Conference Centre.

Tony Crawford, group director at Spectrum, says: “There’s obviously room for all three types of venue. Conference centres, for example, may not be the best place for recognition of reward meetings for regional salesforces.”

George Tullis, chairman of Conference Centres of Excellence, a marketing group to promote a number of conference centres converted from stately homes, is diplomatic about the pros and cons of hotels, converted stately homes and purpose-built centres. “It’s a matter of personal choice,” he says. “The conference industry has evolved in a number of different ways – some ex-stately homes, some purpose-built, some universities. The idea of CCE is to market the advantage that our members have over hotels – the ambience.”

Tullis admits there can be problems with conference centres that have been converted from stately homes or historic buildings, particularly when it comes to putting 20th century technology into 16th century (or earlier) buildings. But, he observes: “Planners are usually all right, because they recognise it’s a good way to keep old buildings in use.”

Nick Day, marketing and special events manager for Leeds Castle, has intimate knowledge of the problems of converting an old building to take new technology. “We have to accept that we’re not a purpose-built conference centre. What we do is adapt the existing facilities – we make changes where aesthetically or historically acceptable. We can offer individuality, atmosphere and character, which purpose-built centres can’t. But we can’t survive on that alone – modern-day business management needs sophisticated audio-visual facilities, for example.”

Leeds Castle solves that problem by hiding sophisticated AV systems behind historic-looking oak panelling in its meeting rooms – but Day admits this is an expensive solution.

When it comes down to it, however, few clients will stick exclusively to one type of venue over another. Meetings and conferences come in all shapes and sizes, and a company that uses the Birmingham ICC for a massive launch to its entire sales force one week, may use a small country hotel for a marketing department brainstorming session the next.

Plus, as Crawford points out, many clients also demand novelty, so whether or not the last venue was a success, they will want to find a new one.

He says. “Clients don’t want to repeat things – that’s part of the attraction of the offer. They want to build up the excitement.”