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The Society of Event Organisers (SEO) which publishes this newsletter has moved to individual free membership, which can be taken up by organisers, convention bureaux, tourist boards, venues, suppliers and agencies in the sector.
All will receive all the SEO’s free newsletters, which can be unsubscribed at any time, as well as a 20% reduction on all qualifications, tutorials and conferences presented by the SEO. Supplier members, venues and agencies receive a 20% reduction on advertising rates.
To sign up for free membership go to www.seoevent.co.uk
As readers will know the current financial crisis has hit Spain particularly hard with industrial output down 24%, unemployment forecast to hit more than 4.5 million next year and visitor numbers sharply declining.
A recent trip to the east coast of Spain to look at venues for incentive travel showed that the deep discounts now being offered more than made up for the euro’s current strong showing against sterling. And, if the financial pundits are to be believed the euro, currently 1.11 against the pound is over valued and “set to plunge within months”.
If so then the silver lining for Spain will be that their luxury properties will become even more affordable and we give below a round up of possibilities that will be well worth checking out.
MURCIA
The La Manga Club resort has the five star, 192 bedroom Principe Felipe Hotel as well as three golf courses, 28 tennis courts, three football pitches and two cricket grounds, along with 20 bars and restaurants and its own beach. There is also the four star Las Lomas Village with 111 self catering apartments and 60 serviced guestrooms.
www.lamangaclub.com
The Intercontinental La Torre Golf Resort opened earlier this year with the five star 133 bedroom Intercontinental La Torre Hotel at its centre. This is located next to an 18 hole Nicklaus Design course and three others are within a 25 km radius.
www.ichotelsgroup.com
ALICANTE
The four star 544 bedroom Melia Alicante occupies a prime position overlooking the beach and the marina and is a short step from the historical city. It has fabulous sea views over the Med and up the coast from its restaurant and from an outdoor poolside area.
www.meliaalicante.com
The four star 156 bedroom Hesperia Alicante Golf Spa Hotel is located on the San Juan beach and overlooks the 18th hole of Alicante Golf, with landscaped gardens and an indoor and a heated outdoor pool, and terraces with golf course views.
www.hesperia-alicante.com
VALENCIA
The five star 135 room Westin Hotel has some rooms with a terrace and outdoor Jacuzzi, and all with a coffee maker. There is a 900 square metre spa, a piano bar, a gourmet restaurant, a club, a sushi bar and a 1900 square metre courtyard with gardens and terraces.
www.westin.com/valencia
Another very large garden area for events is offered at the Masia Xamandreu luxury villa just outside Valencia. This has more than 40,000 square metres of landscaped gardens and large indoor and outdoor areas for fine dining and other corporate activities.
www.masiaxamandreu.com
TARRAGONA
For the ultimate spa experience the four star 214 room Hotel Termes Montbrio boasts four hectares of gardens, two restaurants, one by an outdoor swimming pool, 35 therapists, 60 treatment rooms and a 1000 square metre plus thermal spa area with natural hot spring waters, waterfalls, rapids, steam jets and grottos.
www.RocBlancHotels.com
New to the area and near Salou are the 12 luxury bedrooms at La Boella, a 12th century country house estate where a highly regarded gourmet restaurant already operates along with a cellar and boutique featuring the estates own wines and olive oils, which can be a part of special testing menus, and a variety of indoor and outdoor spaces for private dining in large numbers.
www.laboella.com
SITGES
The five star 263 bedroom Dolce Sitges located on the coast just outside the town enjoys wonderful views and offers an indoor and outdoor pool, spa, and treatment centre and a gourmet restaurant with some creative pairing of flavours and a tasting menu with appropriate wines. The breakfast buffet is especially impressive.
www.dolce-sitges-hotel.com
Those wanting to continue eating well, especially seafood, should book La Fragata on Sitges beach (www.restaurantefragata.com) and those with a love of all things nautical should look at the four star 307 room Hotel Melia Sitges which overlooks the marina in town.
www.melia-sitges.com.
BARCELONA
The five star 433 bedroom Hotel Rey Juan Carlos 1, a member of the Leading Hotels of the World Group, has 25,000 square metres of gardens with marquees set up for outdoor events, and an outdoor pool with restaurant. It has its own convention centre and is at the west end of the Diagonal around 9 miles from the airport and 4 miles from the city.
www.hrjuancarlos.com
Down on the Barcelona waterfront Starwood Hotels are completing the new five star 473 bedroom W.Barcelona which is due to open on October 1 this year with extensive spa facilities, an outdoor heated pool, gourmet restaurants and a rooftop bar with panoramic views.
www.starwoodhotels.com
GIRONA
The four star deluxe 149 room Melia Golf Vichy Catalan is located at the centre of Catalonia PGA Golf, has two 18 hole courses adjacent with many more nearby and offers more than 25,000 square metres of gardens with swimming pools and a restaurant terrace.
www.meliagolfvichycatalan.com
Note (1) Incentive Travel Update would like to thank the Spanish Tourist Board, the Catalunya Tourist Board and the tourist boards of Valencia, Alicante and Murcia for all their kind assistance and hospitality supplied for the press trip.
Note (2) Organisers are invited to attend the A Taste of Spain Travel workshop being held at Vinopolis, near London Bridge 2-3 June, to meet around 80 organisations and enjoy some tapas.
www.atasteofspaintravel.com
One cruise company targeting the incentive travel market that needs to urgently work on its customer relations programme is Italian firm Costa.
This firm recently had to suffer headlines like ‘MUTINY’ ON COSTA CRUISES EUROPA (Telegraph) after engine problems caused the cancellation of some of the promised stops on an Indian Ocean trip and some passengers staged a sit-in to negotiate refunds. Offered instead on-board credits and discounts on future Costa cruises the passengers set up a blog at http://costafailure.blogspot.com to air their grievances and their dissatisfaction with Costa to a wider audience.
From a PR point of view this has been a disaster for Costa. Obviously unexpected technical and operating problems can beset any operation and people are generally sympathetic when it happens but not when the firm tries to find cheaper alternatives to what should have been an automatic refunding and compensation response. This would have avoided the awful publicity Costa attracted and might have even created a positive news story for them.
Costa, for our money, were lucky it wasn’t an incentive trip for high-flying business types that was affected and need to heed a warning issued by Mark Higgins of law firm Betesh Fox in October 2006. Higgins warned of the ease with which a few disgruntled customers can access the web with text, or footage from mobile phones or camcorders and ruin the reputation of a company, or destination. Cheaper by far is to keep them happy and to remember that it’s not what goes wrong, it’s how you rectify it that sets you apart, And customers who have their complaints speedily resolved often turn out to be the most loyal, and therefore profitable in the future.
Costa is now counting the cost of the missed opportunity.
The five star 61 bedroom Rockliffe Hall Hotel, Golf and Spa is due to open in the Tees Valley, near Darlington in October this year.
The property will offer a new 7,850 yard championship golf course, one of the largest in Europe, which is due to open at the end of June. The hotel and golf club house offers three restaurants, a range of spaces for private dining and events for up to 220 delegates, and 25 luxury houses being built in the grounds can also be rented.
www.rockliffehall.com
York could soon have its first 5-star hotel if current proposals go ahead. (The Press).
Yorkshire developers Acropolis Properties want to convert the old GNER offices in Station Rise into a 107 bedroom unit with function rooms and a luxury spa. Its Acropolis Hotels company, also trading as Cedar Court already has four star hotels in nearby Harrogate, Bradford, Wakefield and Huddersfield.
There are around 70 five star hotels in the UK, more than half of which are in London.
A steep fall in the share price of the Orient Express travel and hotel group, and concerns about its ability to withstand the worldwide recession has prompted speculation about its sale, partnering or break up.
The group, as well as running the Orient Express train service also has 35 luxury hotel properties including Le Manoir aux Quat Saisons in Oxfordshire, the Hotel Citriani in Venice, Reids Palace in Madeira, Copacabana Palace in Rio, the Mount Nelson in Cape Town and the Windsor Court in New Orleans.
The world’s top five incentive destinations are, in order: Dubai, London, South Africa, Barcelona and New York/Las Vegas, according to a reader poll carried out by Haymarket’s Conference and Incentive Travel (C & IT) magazine.
It used to be that anyone running incentive trips for Americans would always favour a gambling destination, but now we wonder.
Apparently gambling was down 23% in December in Las Vegas as fewer tourists spent less. A number of casinos there are being forced to sell off property and one group in Atlantic City, Donald Trump’s Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February this year as its shares slipped to 23 cents, from 4 dollars a year ago.
Trump is currently steaming ahead with his new £1 billion Trump International Golf Links Scotland, located on the coast north of Aberdeen and including two courses, a five star hotel, conference centre, spa, 950 holiday homes and 500 private houses.
(See TOO MUCH GOLF? Corporate Hospitality and party Update, December 08).
Meanwhile the new austerity gripping America has forced the postponement of the new AIBTM meetings and incentives show by its organiser, Reed Travel Exhibitions.
The new show was due to run in Baltimore in June 2010. The postponement coincides with proposed new legislation from Congress inhibiting US companies that receive emergency government funding from spending it on meetings and incentives, seen as expensive ways of communicating with and motivating staff.
(Source: Conference News).
Encouraged, we were to hear that some members of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews in Scotland have objected to the membership application of one Sir Fred Goodwin, disgraced RBS banker. (Daily Telegraph).
Some of these members are RBS shareholders who lost tens of thousands in the collapse of the bank under Goodwin’s deeply flawed stewardship and, understandably perhaps, don’t want him playing a round on their course, having played around so disastrously with their money.
It’s probably also for the best as far as the motivational pull of St Andrews is concerned because if a trip there was possibly going to result in meeting a failed banker who has done so financially well out of a weak government and taxpayers money it doesn’t seem like much of an incentive ….
The Society of Event Organisers (SEO) has moved to individual free membership, which can now be taken up by organisers, venues, convention bureaux, tourist boards, suppliers and agencies in the events sector.
To sign up for free membership simply go to www.seoevent.co.uk
The list of events for 2009 includes:
o Certificate in Conference Venue Marketing, August
o Certificate in Conference Food and Beverage, June
o Certificate in Exhibiting, June
o Tutorial – How to write a press release, April and October
o Tutorial – How to be much more creative, April and October
o Certificate in Conference Organisation, August and November/December
o Diploma in Conference Organisation, August
o Conference – Delegate Agenda, April and October
o Conference – Training and Qualifications for Event Organisers, June
o Network Forums, April – November.
Chateau des Vigiers is located near Bergerac in the Dordogne area of South West France and only 1 hour from Bordeaux. The Chateau is quite unique with wonderful architecture, a fabulous setting amongst 450 acres of gardens, vineyards and a spectacular 27 hole golf course. Our warm welcome, the luxurious comfort of our rooms, and the consistent high quality of our cuisine, make this the perfect environment for your Incentive trip. We have a total of 87 bedrooms and 7 meeting rooms. "The Relais", situated 200 metres from the Chateau, offers 40 bedrooms with its own Conference facilities, swimming pool, gymnasium, breakfast room and bar. This can be privatised for your exclusive use.
The area is perfect for sampling wonderful wines (not to mention our own wine estate) and tours and tastings can be organised. For something really different we can go hunting for truffles in the local truffle farms! With everything from rowing on the Dordogne River to private dinners at a traditional farmhouse, the area offers something very different and memorable.
CHATEAU DES VIGIERS
F-24240 MONESTIER
DORDOGNE
SOUTH WEST FRANCE
RESERVATIONS : +33 (0) 553 61 5000
Email us at bienvenue@vigiers.com
Visit our website at www.vigiers.com
VANCOUVER/CANADA – Where East meets West
An exciting destination, a clean city, operating with fabulous efficiency in spectacular surroundings.
9 HOURS FLYING TIME FROM LONDON – 15 HOURS FLYING TIME FROM SYDNEY
Interested in meeting in Vancouver? – If you require a venue for 50 or 1000 delegates we can help. Free information is available to qualifying organizers from Corporations, Association and Institutions, and a trip is planned for later in the year.
Contact:-
Greens Service Company
Established 1988
IATA/TIDS NO: 96046952
Enquiries to:-
TEL: 01934 612277
Or email: tim@gsc-events.com
CERTIFICATE IN CONFERENCE ORGANISATION (CCO)
This is a four day course with a 1½ hour, 150 question examination. Non-residential London course dates are hosted at 16 Park Crescent, London W1. Fee is £1,080 + VAT or £864 plus VAT if two or more delegates attend from the same organisation, or if delegate is an SEO member (Free sign up at www.seoevent.co.uk).
o Putting together a conference programme covering objectives, delegate needs, layouts, food and beverage, speakers and audio-visual Monday 24 August 2009 (London), Friday 20 November 2009 (London).
o Sourcing, evaluating and negotiating with venues covering where to find the best venues, inspecting them and getting the best packages Tuesday 25 August 2009 (London), Friday 27 November 2009 (London).
o Conference Administration covering contracts, organisation, delegate and speaker care, trouble-shooting and evaluation Wednesday 26 August 2009 (London), Friday 4 December 2009 (London).
o Staging a conference for profit covering conception, budgeting, pricing, getting sponsorship and marketing. Examination Thursday 27 August 2009 (London), Friday 11 December 2009 (London).
The CCO can also be delivered as an in-house presentation anywhere. Call + 44 (0) 1767 316255 or e-mail to peter.cotterell@eou.org.uk
CERTIFICATE IN CONFERENCE VENUE MARKETING (CCVM)
This is a new four day non-residential course for marketing and sales staff working in conference venues, and those promoting conference venues. There is a 1½ hour written examination. The CCVM is being hosted at 16 Park Crescent, London W1 and fees are £1,200 plus VAT per delegate with a reduction to £960 plus VAT per delegate if two or more delegates attend from the same organisation or if delegate is an SEO member (Free sign-up at www.seoevent.co.uk). The outline programme (full programme on request) is:
Day One: Nature of the markets, branding, pricing, zero-cost marketing, advertising.
Day Two: Press relations, writing impressive press releases, finding the best stories, handling bad press,.
Day Three: Direct marketing, e-mail marketing, effective direct mailings, copywriting, telemarketing.
Day Four: Exhibitions, maximising the leads, special; events, show-rounds. Examination.
The CCVM takes place August 24 – 27 in 2009. It can also be presented on an in-house basis anywhere. Call + 44 (0) 1767 316255 or e-mail to peter.cotterell@eou.org.uk
Two new one-day tutorials are being run for 2009, How to write a press release and How to be much more creative. Also new is a one-day organisers networking and discussion presentation Delegate agenda. Call + 44 (0) 1767 316255 for details.
Visit www.seoevent.co.uk
In addition to the above the SEO presents in-house workshops on such subjects as exhibiting successfully, manning an exhibition stand, running a small exhibition, negotiating with suppliers, conference catering, legal aspects of running events, presenting persuasively and many more. Call + 44 (0) 1767 316255.for more information.
Visit: seoevent.co.uk
o Event Organisers Update (EOU) for those running UK based conferences and seminars. www.eou.org.uk
o International Event Organisers Update (IEOU) for those running events overseas www.eou.org.uk
o Association News (AN) for those who associate. www.associationnews.org.uk
o Charity Matters. www.ezinematters.com
o Marketing Matters www.ezinematters.com
A 150 word announcement costs from £72 in this section of Incentive Travel Update and reaches 15,000 UK and international incentive travel specialists. To download full details and a booking form visit www.eou.org.uk. A 20% discount is given to members of the SEO – Free sign up at www.seoevent.co.uk
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Society of Event Organisers
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Tel: +44(0)1767 316255 Fax: +44(0)1767 316430
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