In this round table, we look at how the North West business tourism sector competes with the wider UK and what lessons can be learned.
THE PANEL
PAULA LORIMER
sales director, Manchester Central
SHARON LEESON
head of marketing, Manchester Central
NICK BROOKS-SYKES
director of tourism, Northwest Regional Development Agency
JASON HARDING
general manager, The Lowry Hotel
JACQUIE ROGERS
general manager, BT Convention Centre, ACC Liverpool
CAROL O’REILLY
convention bureau manager, The Mersey Partnership
STEPHEN MILES
chair, Manchester Hoteliers Association
ANDREW STOKES
chief executive, Marketing Manchester
MATHEW JAYNE
business tourism representative, The Quays Group
HOWARD RAYNOR
managing director, World Class Service
The competition for tourism
Business tourism is a big hitter for the North West economy and a strong performer on the national playing field. Along with London and the South East, and the West Midlands, the region competes for market share across national and international markets. According to a recent study commissioned by the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA), the sector is worth £7bn and generates 22 million business trips each year to the region.
“I think it’s fair to say that we haven’t in the past concentrated as much effort as we could have done to support business tourism,” says Nick Brooks-Sykes, director of tourism at the NWDA. “And this report, which was published in April 2009, underlines the importance of the sector in the region and has led us to develop a framework of support for the future.”
Meetings dominate the sector, with contract work (17 per cent), training (9 per cent) and conferences (7 per cent) making up the rest of the market. But the cities are not as dominant as you might expect. The largest proportion of trips is made to Greater Manchester (38 per cent), while 19 per cent go to Merseyside; 16 per cent to Lancashire and Cheshire; and 12 per cent to Cumbria.
How has the regional business tourism sector performed in the past year?
Nick Brooks-Sykes From a regional perspective we have seen a flourishing of our investments. We have invested heavily in Liverpool – the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) has spent something in the region of £19m supporting the development of the ACC. And in Manchester we have just invested another £5m in Manchester Central.
Jacquie Rogers Our first year has been great but not without its challenges. We have found that we have got two types of business – those who are prepared to try something new and those who are waiting and seeing. But to have secured the Trade Union Congress and Labour Party conferences in our first year is a real achievement.
Paula Lorimer In 2007/08 we had a record year. We expected to carry on but then the recession hit, affected everyone and we are no different. But our conference business is much more recession proof as these events are always attended by members. We took a decision quite a while ago to move our product mix away from public exhibitions towards national associations to drive business growth.
Stephen Miles It’s been tough. There has been a huge impact on what we call meetings and events’, because people just aren’t having the parties like they used to. Before the crunch we got to a stage where companies in the residential conference market were trying to out do each other; that’s almost disappeared now.
Jason Harding It’s a buyer’s market and they are able to play one venue off against another. We’ve seen reduced numbers; we can’t stick to cancellation policies as in the past – we have become a lot more savvy with the way we have run our businesses compared to 18 months ago. But now we are starting to see signs of the market coming back slowly.
Andrew Stokes While the sector is not bombproof there are certain aspects of the sector that will see the impact of recession quicker than others. In the corporate market, for example, the effects will be seen quicker than in the conference market. Where we have strengths, in the national and international association market, it takes longer for any recession to bite. You might see reduced numbers but they won’t drop out because the lead time on these events is between three and five years.
What are the key areas to concentrate on for operators?
Stokes If you are fleet of foot, you can react to the changes in the market and benefit. Our figures are down in Manchester but they are not down as much as other city destinations. In part that’s because of the product mix we have.
Brooks-Sykes It’s also about reputation. The destinations and products that are succeeding are those with a strong guarantee and underwriting of quality.
Lorimer That’s a good point. The quality of the brand will float to the top. The investment both we and Liverpool have had has not always been replicated in other regions and this has allowed us to stay ahead of the game.
Miles Loyalty in the business tourism market has been affected. No matter how much ou might like a venue or a region, it does come down to price. We know we’ve had customers that have said they like the hotel but corporate policy says ‘we have to go somewhere else’. That’s a major factor.
Harding That’s where we have got to understand our customers more. Eighty per cent of them might go away, as dictated by corporate policy, but they will come back.
Miles Trip Advisor is the most powerful decision-making tool in world travel, bar none. Whether we like it or not.
Howard Raynor For business travel 28 per cent of people look at Trip Advisor, 46 per cent are influenced by it and 41 per cent change their booking as a result of what they see.
Is the skills base strong enough to support the sector?
Raynor We spend an awful lot of money on the infrastructure but not that much money on the people. The skills issue remains, in some respects unresolved, although we are making strides to address it. The idea that we can produce quality out of purely a physical infrastructure is a mistake. We have got to turn that friendly northern warmth into a level of polished professionalism.
Mathew Jayne I’m from London. There is certainly a warmth and welcome in the North West. London, by comparison, can certainly feel quite desolate in its approach. There still needs to be a focus on training to give that real cutting edge to make us stand out over other regions.
Carol O’Reilly I think there is a huge focus on training, certainly in the organisation I’m in and through the NWDA. These opportinities are particularly being taken up by small businesses that perhaps don’t have the budget for training.
Jayne The issue you do face is that hospitality is a perceived as a lower grade job. There is a fine balance between finding the right people and the right skills.
How do Manchester and Liverpool compete, and also work together?
Brooks-Sykes Thirty-nine per cent of business tourism in the North West comes to Manchester, just two fifths.
Rogers Manchester has its own statement and style and Liverpool has the same. They can work alongside each other. If we try and fight each other it’s pointless because everyone round the country will think it’s the old football wars again, which is totally counterproductive.
Stokes Where appropriate competition is a very good thing. There are times when the cities will go after the same piece of usiness. There are certain sectors that Manchester is going to dominate, as long as it has the largest regional airport outside of London, for example. Some international markets would only look at Manchester for this reason.
O’Reilly Clearly it makes sense to work together and I think we do. One thing we’ve got that others haven’t is the regional research unit funded through the NWDA. Having come here from another region where this didn’t exist, I don’t think people here always fully appreciate it.
Brooks-Sykes We’ve got two world class brands there. It makes total sense for them to work together in positioning our region. No other area of the country has those two brands sitting alongside each other. The conference desks from around the region sit around the table on a quarterly basis. We also have a team of people in Manchester identifying opportunities to bid for international association business.
Is there a geographical bias in the UK in terms of events and conferences?
Rogers There is a shift with clients. It always used to be a switch between north and south, and that’s not happening so much. I used to be on the south coast. Brighton and Bournemouth used to get all the work. We are now seeing the Labour Party, for example, switching between Manchester and Liverpool. That is an example of people buying more cleverly.
Lorimer I’ve seen quite a change. Where things were peripatetic we are now seeing double and triple rotations. So keeping business in the North West is something we’ve tried hard to do. As sectors, pensions and shopping centres have stayed in the region. But we are competing with a much wider market than the North West.
O’Reilly I was talking to someone who held a conference at ACC Liverpool earlier this year and initially she said she had quite a hard job of getting people to come to the city.
Raynor The cost base is 30 per cent lower than doing anything in London. And with a 93 pence Euro, Dublin doesn’t look so good.
Miles The fact that your pound goes further up here is a key thing.
Stokes Changing the mould of political conferencing has had greater ramifications than maybe we realise in other parts of the association market. In 2006 the Labour Party hadn’t been to a new conference destination in 23 years after going between the north and the south. Now, as long as they are central, they can stay in the North West and I think that’s key. The one thing about political conferencing is that they have to get out of London.
How can other regions learn from the North West offer?
Rogers Even though you have got two big competitors in one region it can still work.
Sharon Leeson Quality is very important. There are cities that would claim to have the same assets as Liverpool and Manchester so you have to drive forward this USP.
O’Reilly It’s really important to capitalise on the event once you have brought it to the city. We are focussing on delegate welcoming initiatives to make sure they are well looked after and will come back. Stokes We have glorified our diversity. There is great difference in the destinations we have and that’s a card we haven’t hesitated to play.
Miles I’d spin it around. What can we learn from other regions in other cities? I don’t think we should think we are sitting on top of the pile – we’re not. Edinburgh is a classic example. It’s been the number one destination for a number of years now on the conference and banqueting market.
Stokes As a region we are very good at adopting innovation so we do look at new ways of doing things.
What are they key challenges to be aware of over the next year to two years?
Lorimer There is a lot to do internationally. As a region I would love us to win more events from overseas. The other thing is about staying ahead. We have built a great reputation but it’s bit like the sea – you can build a sandcastle and then the tide comes in a washes it all away.
Rogers It’s the new venues. Manchester has coped with Liverpool coming on board and we are now both feeling Dublin coming on board. There’s Newcastle, possibly Cardiff, and ICC London. They are the real challenges and why you have to have that real Dunkirk spirit and all pull together.
Miles What worries me is the skills factor. There are 7,000 hotel bedrooms in Manchester; and there will be more coming on line in the next few years. Where are we going to get all these people from to service that? At the moment they will just jump from hotel to hotel.
Brooks-Sykes If we get three things right we’ll stay ahead of the competition: quality, distinctiveness and value for money are the areas to concentrate on.