Corus and Laura Ashley Hotels, Cairn Group and Millennium Group are among the latest leading hotel groups, hotels, conference centres and event service providers to join the Meetings Industry Association (mia) as it celebrates a massive surge in new membership.
Since 1 January, 66 venues and service suppliers have joined the trade association, growing membership to over 700 and helping to make it one of the fastest growing associations in the sector and a more powerful voice for the industry.
Other new members include: Big Group, Crowne Plaza Harrogate, Crowne Plaza Plymouth, Crowne Plaza London The City, De Montford University, Down Hall Hotel and Spa, Granta Centre, Moor Hall Hotel & Spa, Ministry of Sound Events, The Three Swans Hotel, The Venue Experience Group and Trump Turnberry.
New members also achieve AIM accreditation – the nationally-recognised standard for venues and service providers in the meetings, conferences and events industry, with 50 strict criteria which must be met to achieve accreditation.
Gavin Percy, commercial director Corus & Laura Ashley Hotels, said: “Following significant capital investment in many of our hotels, and increased guest service training at all of our hotels, we are delighted that Burnham Beeches Hotel in Slough/Windsor; Laura Ashley Hotel The Manor in Elstree; Corus Hotel The Regency in Solihull; Corus Hotel The Chace in Coventry and Corus Hotel The Hillcrest in Widnes have been accepted into the well-respected AIM Accreditation programme operated by the mia.”
Jane Longhurst, mia chief executive, said: “We are delighted to be welcoming such a varied and esteemed collection of new members to our organisation. Our goal is to strengthen in numbers, which we are well on-track to achieve. Working together we can ensure that the meetings industry in the UK is among the best in the world. We can provide our members with the training, support and benchmarking tools to assist them to achieve their goals.”
She added: “With AIM accreditation mia members can offer a guarantee to buyers that when they choose their venue they are selecting a venue that cares about best practice and actively strives to meet and exceed their expectations. As we are in a growing industry with such a wide choice of venues across the country for event buyers to choose from, being able to stand out from the crowd and offer an assurance of quality is essential to growing business.”
