Manchester celebrated its venues recently at the Manchester Tourism Awards. And there is plenty to celebrate: Manchester United Museum and Stadium Tour was named the ‘Large Visitor Attraction of the Year’; while the blue half of the city also had something to cheer about with The Manchester City Stadium Experience winning the ‘Small Visitor Attraction’ award for 2013.
The awards ceremony itself was held at The Lowry, Salford Quays, a district that has seen smart, new venues spring up and a destination now home to MediaCity.
The Radisson Blu Edwardian Free Trade Hall was ‘Hotel of the Year’ at the awards, not bad in a city that also has The Midland, Great John Street Hotel and the new Abode.
The award for ‘Business Tourism’ went to Emirates Old Trafford, where The Pavilion event space is now joined via a new bridge to The Point conference centre.
Museum of Science and Industry’s (MOSI) Manchester Science Festival and the Ramsbottom Festival 2012 were victorious in the large and small ‘Event of the Year’ categories.
And, with approximately 1.1m international visitors a year, Greater Manchester is the third most popular destination in the UK for overseas visitors to Britain. The city’s business tourism industry generates an estimated £822m a year and attracts some 5.2m delegates.
In terms of conference venues, prima inter pares is Manchester Central, the city centre convention complex that successfully hosted the Conservative Party autumn conference recently. EventCity is also adding to the critical mass at the larger capacity end of the market. As well as these venue flagships, the city boasts another 250 across Greater Manchester, including smaller unique venues like The Monastery in Gorton. A £6.5m restoration has brought this hidden treasure into the events market.
Other new developments include:
- The recently launched Milton Club, a contemporary members club located in the heart of the city, offering an elegant amber and charcoal grey interior and private spaces for corporate hire.
- Manchester House, new fine dining concept with Aiden Byrne at the helm. It benefits from a roof terrace, popular with corporates, although its website is rather bland
- Albert Hall, a Grade II Wesleyan chapel in the city centre, has opened after 40 years and from February 2014 will focus on conferences and private hire
- Bolton Whites is now independent after breaking away from De Veres and will start refurbishing soon. All of the food is prepared by Paul Heathcote’s company
- New openings with venue space include Manchester Metropolitan University’s Birley Fields, due to complete in 2015 and next spring’s Central Library reopening.
Housed in one square mile, The Quays offers a fantastic range of venues for both large-scale conferences for up to 1,730 delegates to smaller-scale meetings and training days. Venues in the area are served well with top bars, restaurants and hotels.
The Quays offers The Millennium Copthorne Manchester, a four-star hotel overlooking the wateont. It has conference capacity for up to 160 delegates.
Emirates Old Trafford, the home of Lancashire County Cricket Club, Old Trafford football stadium and The Lowry, mentioned earlier, are all located in the Quays.
If you want a striking backdrop to your event, how about the award-winning IWM North, part of Imperial War Museums. Daniel Libeskind’s iconic building features a range of exhibitions, tours and activities for organisers to consider. The venue’s technology includes the 360-degree cinematic experience, which can project digital wallpapers to create a bespoke backdrop. The Main Exhibition Space can host receptions, award ceremonies, launches and dinners, with space for between 70 and 700 guests.
When, in 2012, Manchester gained a direct flight route from Manchester to Washington, the Visit Manchester conference team did some deep research into possible conference leads from
that area.
The Society for Ecological Restoration’s (SER) World Congress on Ecological Restoration was one target and a meeting was arranged between SER and Manchester Central at IMEX America that year.
SER said they were interested but specified the need to involve an academic. Manchester Conference Ambassador Dr David Haley from MMU was approached as someone who was doing some work in
that area.
With Dr Haley and MMU conference office’s help, Visit Manchester approached SER with a bid. A PCO was needed and Meeting Makers was brought on board during this process.
SER’s Executive Director Steve Bosak visited Manchester in July 2013 for site visits at the venues – MMU and Manchester Central. There was also local industry support from the likes of Positive Impact and the Biospheric Foundation, which helped showcase Manchester’s wider sustainable initiatives.
The SER announced Manchester’s bid was successful at its 5th World Congress in Madison, Wisconsin, last October, following a presentation from Dr Haley.
The five-day conference will bring 1,500 delegates to the city, 23-27 August 2015, in a deal estimated to be worth approximately £3.9m for the local economy.
SER plans to use Manchester Central for the main assembly and MMU for pre-conference meetings. Both venues have been praised for their sustainability initiatives, which include Manchester Central being one of the first UK venues to achieve ISO20121 international accreditation, while MMU recently ranked as the UK’s greenest university.
Later this year Manchester Central will open a new on-site recycling centre, and from January 2014 all clients will be able to get full sustainability reports for their events, allowing them to benchmark their carbon footprint.
Paul Simpson, MD of Visit Manchester, said: “Manchester is increasingly being recognised as a sustainable meetings destination and it’s fantastic that as a city we have an extensive network of green venues and organisations to help secure prestigious bids like this.”
Dr Haley added: “Personally, I feel very lucky that I found myself at the centre of an amazingly professional and effective team. ’Team Manchester’ were ready to go from the moment we submitted our proposal, and, despite strong competition from an exotic competitor, our team’s success is especially due to the coordination by Visit Manchester.”
The team at Visit Manchester assisted with an in-principle subvention award from Manchester City Council to support delegates from developing countries in attending to ensure true international representation at the conference.
This was first published in the December issue of CN. Any comments? Email conferencenews@mashmedia.net
