Principal Hayley win the Gold Award at BDRC VenueVerdict Awards
IET Venues, which operates three dedicated conference venues in London, Birmingham and Glasgow, has been named the "No.1 UK Brand" in the 2010 BDRC Continental VenueVerdict Awards.
In addition to this coveted accolade, all three of the IET properties achieved the prestigious "Gold Standard‟ accreditation, which is reserved for those venues scoring an average of 90 or more (out of 100) for overall performance across the whole year. No other brand had as many venues achieve this, so IET Venues also collects the "Gold Standard Brand Award‟ and an unprecedented "double‟.
Sundial Venues claimed the overall "No.1 Venue" accolade for Highgate House in Northamptonshire, which was also the highest performing specialist conference venue in the programme in 2010. The award for "No.1 Hotel" went to the APEX City of London hotel, while Lord‟s Cricket Ground was named "No.1 Sporting Venue".
Overall, 79% of the venues participating in the survey in 2009 and in 2010 recorded improvements in their score year-on-year. Regus, Principal Hayley and QHotels were the three brands who delivered improved scores in the largest number of individual venues within their subscribing portfolios.
James Bland, Senior Client Services Manager at BDRC Continental, believes these results make a case to support the idea that service delivery drives event hosts' value perceptions more significantly than price. "It's little surprise that the brands we have seen finishing first, second and third in the overall performance league table are also occupying the top three positions in the value for money ratings. Savvy buyers know that competitive rates are available in the marketplace, but there are two sides to the value equation, and being cheap does not necessarily guarantee providing good value."
The VenueVerdict Awards are determined by the scores given by meeting and event customers in post-event feedback surveys. Independently operated by BDRC Continental, the VenueVerdict programme currently includes over 200 UK conference venues and hotels, providing them with real-time customer feedback, trends, share-of-budget data and competitor benchmarking. Amongst other things, this information can be harnessed to guide investment decisions, prioritise training requirements and improve sales team performance and conversion.
The awards programme is now in its fifth year, and is more keenly contested each time as top-performing venues use the survey outputs to improve their operational performance. The awards were determined by nearly 17,500 customer feedback surveys across the VenueVerdict membership.
No.1 UK Brand: IET Venues
Gold Standard Brand Award: IET Venues
No.1 Venue: Highgate House (Sundial Venues)
No.1 Hotel: APEX City of London
No.1 Specialist Conference Centre: Highgate House (Sundial Venues)
No.1 Sporting Venue: Lord‟s Cricket Ground, London
Gold Standard Venues 2010:
Teacher Building, Glasgow (IET Venues)
Savoy Place, London (IET Venues)
Austin Court, Birmingham (IET Venues)
Highgate House, Northampton (Sundial Venues)
Woodside, Kenilworth (Sundial Venues)
The George Hotel, Edinburgh (Principal Hayley)
Alexandra House, Swindon (Principal Hayley)
Maple House, Birmingham (etc venues)
APEX City of London
Cotswold Conference Centre
Great Fosters, Surrey
The Landmark London Hotel
Church House Conference Centre, London
The Møller Centre, Cambridge
Novotel Southampton
Park Plaza Sherlock Holmes, London