Published by Neil ThompsonAs the UK’s largest sales and marketing consortium of specialist conference, meeting and training spaces, Venues of Excellence are able to offer considerable benefits to individual venues. From national sales and marketing activity to a collective negotiating power with key industry suppliers, not forgetting a professional support network of likeminded people.
We all are aware of the impact COVID-19 has had on the conference and events industry and as venues continue to open their doors, Mandy Jennings, Executive Director of Venues of Excellence (VoE) has launched a “Stronger Together” Campaign targeted specifically to independent venues and smaller groups.
Supporting conference and event led venues, the campaign offers a 10% discount to join the leading sales and marketing consortium in the UK. With 47 member venues currently, VoE has a strong brand and is an umbrella for all members allowing customers to associate their venue with the quality and ‘Excellence’ that comes with it.
Over the past few months, the VoE Board has been strategic in partnering with organisations that will support and underpin the consortium with a new range of benefits, such as Institute of Hospitality and most recently the collaboration with Academic Venue Solutions. “The VoE members have been forward thinking and it is so encouraging to see how they developed a number of initiatives to ensure they come back stronger from reviewing their Terms and Conditions, developing Hybrid meeting packages and using our Learning and Development academy to increase skills during lockdown ready to launch back with positivity” commented Ivor Turner, Chairman of Venues of Excellence.
Engaging with membership throughout 2020 has been paramount to the VoE team and has been well received by members, in such unprecedented times as commented by Tim Chudley, Managing Director of the Sundial Group comments: “Being able to meet, albeit on line, with others to share the worries and responsibilities and knowing the work we are all doing to provide safe meetings environments has been a massive benefit of membership.”
Mandy Jennings commented: “Since March, VoE have been instrumental in creating online communications with our members throughout lockdown, introducing a range of events with industry specialists to help our venues be as prepared as they could be to reopen and face the industry challenges that lie ahead. We know that for some independent venues, the proactive sales and marketing support we can offer at this time, will help position their venue with a group of like minded individuals, dedicated to the hospitality industry and spearheading the new events world we now deliver to our customers.
We all find ourselves in difficult times, however as a consortium we believe that we are ‘Stronger Together’ to create business strategies and initiatives with our members to be at the forefront of welcoming our clients back to our venues and seeing the events industry thrive.”
