What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 2 Novemer 2015

Welcome to another week and we hope everyone survived Halloween in tact and with more treats than tricks!

So, what is in the offing this week we hear you ask? Well, we are delighted to announce the launch of the new look CHS Awards, which following the success of the inaugural Awards launched earlier this year in conjunction with the CHS Group, are back under a new guise for 2016 as “The Character Awards”.

The new look awards have been created to recognise aspects of venues and hotels and rather than allow big budgets or marketing expertise to rule the results, The Character Awards offer a solid platform of promotion for any property in the United Kingdom to showcase their facilities.

Richard John of RJA will once again chair a panel of over 100 different senior event agency personnel who will be responsible for selecting the winners in the awards in one of the 19 categories recognising everything from a “Funky Bedroom” to an “Unusual Boardroom”.

The deadline for entries is Friday 5 February 2016, with the finalists being announced at the CHS Show at the First Direct Arena in Leeds on Tuesday 26 April with the Awards Ceremony & Gala Dinner being held on Thursday 25 May 2016 at the Mercure Manchester Piccadilly Hotel.

Full details of the Awards, the Event and the Judges are available on the website (insert link) and you can follow news and updates about The Character Awards using #character2016

In other news, we had the lovely Kevan Holland in to see us last week from Trident Hospitality and we had a rather lengthy chat about Independent hotels and their increasing popularity amongst business travellers in the UK, according to the latest research from hotel reservation service HRS.

 

Figures showed a steady monthly rise with a 38% increase in the number of bookings for independent hotels from 2013 to 2014. This increased to 59% from 2014 to 2015. Kevan said he was very pleased with the research findings, especially as Trident has always been passionate about supporting independent venues and hotels. 

And he quotes “For the past 5 years we have worked relentlessly to get the recognition that these venues are a viable alternative to branded properties. Independents do not have the weight of a group behind them with large marketing budgets and a sales force. They do not have the resources to offer overrides that makes them attractive to the larger agents, but they can offer a team of passionate, professional and long serving staff and guests are not treated as a case of ‘here today gone tomorrow’. This is an ethos that we share at Cloud 9.

"There is continuity from enquiry through to delivery and invoicing, developing a relationship and long term loyalty.” During an interview for ‘The Caterer’ Jon West, managing director of HRS in the UK and Ireland, said independent hotels often have more attractive prices and better rating reviews.

 

“While chain hotels will remain important, independent hotels can be a great choice and are now a truly viable option, deserving of their place in the corporate hotel programme,” Jon said. “Outside the US, 30% of the hotels available are chain and 70% are independent but this is not currently reflected by the majority of corporate travel programmes. Interestingly, our latest data for 2014 tells us that while 66% of newly sourced hotels in the UK were independent, a staggering 84% of those actually booked by business travellers in the same year were still chain hotels. 

So, while it is fantastic news that individual hotels are finally starting to get the recognition they deserve from hotel bookers in 2015, there is still a job to be done in order for them to be truly considered part of a mixed hotel programme combining both chain and independent properties,” Jon said.

Kevan is pleased to see that as a collective of Independent Venues, Trident is now being taken seriously by some of the more established agents.  “We now have an agreement with Inntel that will see a greater exposure of our independent venue partners – a genuine partnership based on trust and not on how much the agency can squeeze out of the venues with no real promise of business,” he said.

“However is it saddening to see that independent venues are not well represented on Corporate Travel Programmes. It sometimes seems it is a case of money saving over value often pushed by procurement teams far removed from the hotel and venue users!”

Interesting stuff and a perspective that we very much share here at Cloud 9 - size does not always mean service and that is a value that we want to continue to deliver to our clients both existing and new in the future.

Have a great week...!