Venuemasters, the consortium promoting the meeting and accommodation facilities at over 80 academic venues, has acclaimed its recent B&B challenge a major success.
Based on an idea from Mary Catling from member the Royal Agricultural University, members spend one night at each other’s venues with the aim of providing feedback on all aspects of their B&B operations.
Two groups of venues took part including: Royal Agricultural University, Royal Holloway, University of London, Venue Reading (Group 1), Lancaster University, The University of Liverpool and the University of Wolverhampton (Group 2). Each venue was scored on various elements of their B&B services, and also in terms of their ‘value for money.’
To ensure the scoring remained consistent the scorecard was devised based on the overall B&B experience, from the initial impression to the facilities and service provided. A feedback session was held at the end of the final visit to give participants the opportunity to highlight positive aspects of their stay and discuss ideas for future developments.
Members said they found it beneficial to share best practice and learn about the procedures in place at other academic venues. The scores were close, said Venuemasters, but the winners from each group were Venue Reading and the University of Wolverhampton.
Tim Widdows, Hotel and Marketing Manager at Venue Reading, said: “This was a fantastic challenge that helped me to improve our B&B offering. A very worthwhile project.”
Terry Billingham, Chief Executive of Venuemasters, said: “I’d like to congratulate all the venues who took part and contributed to the success of the B&B challenge. This was a great opportunity for some of our members to benchmark their B&B services and gain valuable feedback to support their future developments.”
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