Venues of Excellence announces four new members

As Venues of Excellence, formerly known as Conference Centres of Excellence, launched at The Meetings Show at Olympia yesterday (14th June 2016) on Stand No H700, the consortium announces that it has gained four new members in recent weeks.

Venues of Excellence Board Members at The Meetings Show 2016

The four new venues are The Lensbury four star hotel in Middlesex; Manchester Conference Centre in Manchester; Yarnfield Park in Staffordshire and Jurys Inn Hinckley Island in Leicestershire.

Before joining the consortium, venues have to meet stringent criteria in terms of quality, facilities, accommodation and customer care.

A previous member of the consortium, The Lensbury four star hotel and awarding winning conference centre at Teddington Lock, has made the strategic decision to re-join Venues of Excellence in recent weeks.

Ivor Turner, general manager of The Lensbury, explained: “Following a £14.5million investment in upgrading our facilities and training our staff to the highest standards, we feel the timing is right to re-join the consortium.We are delighted to be back in the Venues of Excellence family and look forward to participating in educational exchange, networking and sharing of good practice with other quality-driven venues to deliver exceptional conference services to our clients.”

Stuart Websdale, chairman of Venues of Excellence, said: “The rebranding to Venues of Excellence has been a strategic step to broaden our footprint within the wider hospitality and events sector.

“The quality and calibre of our new members is testament to our reputation and to the work we have done over the past 24 years in providing marketing support, networking and impressive lead generation to our members.”

The consortium’s goal is to grow membership to 50 members by 2020.

With the journey towards having broader representation and increasing value to members already underway, Stuart Websdale is confident that other quality-driven venues from within the wider industry will want to endorse their venue with a badge of excellence synonymous with the Venues of Excellence brand.

He said: “Many of our members are independent players with a shared quality ethos and vision. What we offer is sharing of good practice, idea exchange and benchmarking to drive quality and to deliver excellence to our end users. The strengths of the consortium are many, not the least of which are our emphasis on transparency of relationships and understanding of buyers’ needs."

Venues of Excellence is currently exhibiting at The Meetings Show with six partners: Cranfield Management Development Centre, Bedfordshire; Golden Jubilee Conference Hotel, Glasgow; CIM | Moor Hall, Berkshire; Henley Conferences, Oxfordshire; Missenden Abbey, Buckinghamshire, and one of its newest members, Jurys Inn Hinckley Island, Leicestershire.

Puma Hotels rebrands to 'The Hotel Collection'

Puma Hotels Collection, the portfolio of 21 properties that includes The Lygon Arms in Broadway, the Cotswolds, Hinckley Island Hotel in Leicestershire and The Imperial Hotel in Torquay, has rebranded to The Hotel Collection with immediate effect. 

Commenting on the announcement, Fredrik Korallus, Chief Executive Officer of The Hotel Collection said: “The new name reflects our desire to build upon our successful strategy to focus on the strengths of the individual hotels, many of which are iconic properties, well known in the market in their own right.

He continued: “Since taking over management of the collection, we have achieved strong revenue growth predominantly driven by the resurgence in the meetings and events market, as well as strong leisure demand.

“We will continue our focus on providing excellent customer service through high quality management both centrally and throughout our individual hotels.”

For more information please contact us on 0845 230 1414 or email info@cceonline.co.uk

Hinckley Island joins Conference Centres of Excellence

Hinckley Island Hotel has joined Conference Centres of Excellence, the UK’s only sales and marketing consortium of dedicated meeting providers.

The four-star Hinckley Island Hotel features the most extensive conference facilities of the Puma Hotels Collection, offering 24 meetings rooms for up to 650 delegates, 362 bedrooms, free Wi-Fi and ample parking for cars and coaches, with excellent transport links.  The hotel is set in the beautiful Leicestershire countryside with plenty of space for outdoor team building activities, a pool, gym, and restaurants. It’s excellent location and first-class facilities make this the ideal destination for large conferences and multi-day training courses.

Having met stringent criteria in terms of facilities, accommodation and customer care, joining Conference Centres of Excellence enables Hinckley Island to benefit from the group’s marketing activities, providing customers with a single route to booking one of our nationwide venues, with consistent quality standards.

Amanda Stacey, Marketing Manager of Conference Centres of Excellence said “Hinckley Island has an excellent combination of facilities, offering flexible space to meet customer requirements for large conferences and events, at a time when Association business is stronger than ever. We are pleased to broaden our portfolio further to meet our adapting customer demands, and welcome Hinckley Island to our consortium.”

Conference Centres of Excellence has been working with specialist venues in the meetings, training and events industry for 21 years, and its 35 members include many of the country’s best known specialist venues, covering a geographical area extending from the south coast of England to Scotland. 

“We are delighted to be working in partnership with such an established company as Conference Centres of Excellence, “commented Sam Davies, Director of Sales. “We are looking forward to this exciting new venture”.

For more information please call us on 0845 230 1414 or email: info@cceonline.co.uk