During his speech at the Britain For Events conference in early July, Micheal Hirst announced the commencement of The U.K. Economic Impact Study (UKEIS).

The study, which is being overseen by the MPI Foundation, will provide a coherent and precise overview of the U.K. meeting industry—its size, value and importance to the U.K. commercial landscape and economy.

Following the selection of Leeds Metropolitan University as the research team for the project, the MPI Foundation has confirmed that the study has been activated and research will commence over the summer of 2012, with initial findings to be announced in spring 2013.

"The UKEIS will be the first study on this scale ever undertaken by the U.K. meetings industry," said Samme Allen, MPI U.K. and Ireland Chapter president and Barbican head of sales. "It will give us an opportunity to demonstrate the sheer size and importance of our industry to both the government and the wider business community. With this data we will be able to lobby for a greater voice in decisions that will affect us, demonstrate why we matter and why more people should listen to what we have to say.

"To ensure the success of the study, we ask that each and every organisation within the industry become involved, provide data and promote the study through every stage of its progress," she continued. "This study is about all of us, and it is beneficial to all of us. Ultimately, the more people who get involved the more accurate the results will be."

A study of this scale would not be possible without the engagement of a knowledgeable and professional research organisation. Leeds Metropolitan University was selected for the task following an in-depth tender process. 

"Leeds Metropolitan University offer the perfect balance of industry knowledge and credibility in research on this scale," said Didier Scaillet, chief development officer for MPI and the MPI Foundation. "Their professional approach to the tender and understanding of our needs clearly established them as the perfect partner for us in this groundbreaking piece of research.

"Leeds Metropolitan University are however not the only partners vital to the success of the UKEIS," he continued. "This research would not be possible without the significant investment we have received from a select group of farsighted organisations. As sponsors of the UKEIS they have made the research possible and continue to raise its profile across the industry."

The full list of sponsors for the UKEIS is:

IHG
Reed Travel Exhibitions
Barbican
Q Hotels
London & Partners
Confex
Meetings & Incentive Travel
IMEX
ExCel
Visit Wales
Visit Scotland
Conde Nast
The Meetings Show UK
SITE
ICCA
SECC

A full timeline of the research, including initial findings and final results will be announced in the near future.

The following is a dispatch from Rob Cotter, a frequent One+ contributor, who is attending EIBTM in Barcelona, Spain.

Here are a couple of quick headlines from EIBTM

Edinburgh’s Caledonian Hilton gets an Uplift

The famous landmark hotel in the Scottish capital, fondly known by locals as "Caley," is to receive a US$20 million (£14 million) uplift to bring her into the luxury hotel bracket and lure back the rich and famous who once graced the foyers. Once she’s all cleaned up, Caley will operate as a part of Hilton’s luxury Waldorf Astoria brand as the Caledonian, a Waldorf Astoria Hotel, including the brand’s trademark personal concierge service.

“It will be a shining example of Scottish luxury, history and heritage,” said John Vanderslice, head of Luxury and Lifestyle Brands at Hilton Worldwide. 

It will also be a brand first for Scotland, like a meeting of two old dears: the first time in the luxury brand’s 127-year history that it will arrive in the country is to meet the 108 year old Caley. Sounds like a great occasion to share a wee dram of the country’s finest single malt! 

Gulf Stream Effects

News of a new convention center for the Arabian Gulf were announced at this year’s EIBTM: Oman is all set to join the growing numbers of Middle East destinations vying for the lucrative meetings market and are planning to unveil their new Oman Convention and Exhibition centre in 2015.

“The center will generate social and economic benefits for the country and will place Oman on the world map by playing host to global and large scale conferences and events,” said Eng. Wael bin Ahmed Al Lawati, CEO of Omran, the government-established developers of the center. 

The plans for the new center demonstrate extraordinary levels of environmental responsibility, meeting U.S. Green Building Council LEED certification and locating the center within a natural reserve. The facilities are also pretty special too: a 3,200-seat tiered auditorium, 22,000 square meters of divisible and column-free exhibition space with state-of-the-art acoustics and lighting, 14 meeting rooms, two ballrooms, a VIP Pavilion and a food court.

The precinct that will envelop the center shows plans for a business park, a retail mall, serviced apartments and a range of hotels, ticking all boxes for meeting requirements. 

To be managed by the Ogden Group, Oman realizes that even years before it opens the competition will be stiff.

“There are more than 200 convention and exhibition centers competing on the world stage for a slice of the business events pie, but research already undertaken has identified international conventions with the potential to be held in Oman as far ahead as 2024,” said Geoff Donaghy, AEG Ogden group director, convention centers.

When it’s set to be as good as this, there’s always room for one more.

—Rob Cotter

Talk about international. MPI leader Patrick Delaney's team has announced a deluge of new offices in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. Fitting that the Dublin-based Ovation Global made its announcement right here at the IMEX America trade show in Las Vegas. The company's nine new partner locations include:

• Bulgaria - Lidia Tours 
• Iceland - Iceland Congress 
• Israel - Eshet Incentives & Conferences 
• Japan - The J Team Co. Ltd 
• Lebanon - Infomed 
• Luxembourg - Luxembourg and More 
• Namibia - Terra Nova Tours 
• Slovakia - Enjoy Slovakia DMC 
• Sri Lanka - Golden Isles Travel Ltd

In Canada, destination services will be provided by a wholly owned, full service operation lead by industry veteran (and MPI member) Emily Edwards, CMP, and operating from offices in Toronto, Vancouver and Whistler. 

It's exciting to see what our own MPI members are doing, and it seems like they're everywhere on the show floor. BTW, that's Patrick in the photo!

Meanwhile, Ovation announced the winner of its 2011 Huggability Award: Samme Allen—the head of the MPI U.K. and Ireland Chapter. Allen was nominated for being "immensely supportive of everyone in the meetings world, kind and dynamic, a pleasure to work with and an inspiration to the industry."

The 2010 winner was Barbra Albrecht of the Switzerland Convention and Incentive Bureau. For more information on the Huggability Award, nominees and shortlisted candidates, visit www.ovationdmc.com. And, of course, that's Samme to the left.

ExCeL London has been crowned UK Venue of the Year at this year's coveted AEO (Association of Exhibition Organisers) Excellence Awards. ExCeL London's owner ADNEC (Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company) also won International Venue of the Year.

"This is another fantastic achievement for the team at ExCeL and ADNEC," said David Pegler, managing director at ExCeL London. "Coinciding with us marking the ICC's first birthday, this is genuine testament to the world-class facilities we offer and highlights how the new event space can increase event organizers' meeting and conference event options even further. Our ambition is to be Europe's leading convention center and with continued investment in our infrastructure we shall continue to boost London's appeal as a leading events and business destination for domestic and international events."

The AEO Excellence Awards is the flagship ceremony for the live events and exhibition industry. Attended by more than 1,200 professionals, the awards are considered to be the industry's own Academy Awards.

Travelodge plans to develop 20- to 40-room "Metro" hotels in prestigious locations and in office blocks across the UK. The model will allow the hotel chain to open properties near existing Travelodge locations where larger development sites are either not available or have unrealistic price expectations in addition to suburban locations where larger sites are not desirable for local authorities or development land is at a premium. Properties that will be considered include: floors in office buildings, business parks, pubs, old cinemas/theaters, snooker halls, listed buildings, retail outlets and derelict buildings. 

The desire to build smaller Travelodge hotels has been inspired by two successful development ventures the company invested in last year. The first initiative was opening a Metro-style prototype hotel in one of Edinburgh’s busiest tourist areas (Rose Street just off Princes Street). Travelodge built a hotel in a Georgian listed building which also houses two bars and a restaurant. The 43-room hotel sits above the three properties and has a small entrance sandwiched between the bar and restaurant. It has become one of the company’s top performing hotels due to its key location.

The second venture to support the Metro style was the successful conversion of 52 Innkeeper’s Lodge hotels into the Travelodge estate following their purchase in July 2010. The majority of these acquired hotels are under 40 rooms and have proven to be highly profitable additions for Travelodge. A prime example is the 18-room Southgate Travelodge, in the London borough of Enfield, which has been full nearly every night since acquisition. There is little competition nearby and there are no development opportunities within the local vicinity, despite the clear demand for hotel rooms.

This new building approach will run alongside Travelodge’s existing growth strategy to expand to 1,100 hotels and 100,000 rooms by 2025. The Metro-style properties will still be called Travelodge hotels and the room size will be based on a standard double Travelodge room. They will be run by the existing managers of nearby, larger Travelodge hotels and will provide a training ground for trainees, recruited via Travelodge’s new Apprenticeship program. 

Since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Travelodge has opened or exchanged on more than 14,000 rooms. Travelodge has also become the largest hotel brand in: London, Edinburgh, Birmingham and Cambridge. Over the last five years, the brand has focused on city center growth to rebalance its portfolio away from roadside locations. Today these motorway and trunk route sites represent just 25 percent of the company’s hotel stock with the remaining quarter in suburban, seaside and tourist locations. Travelodge has 472 hotels (and more than 32,000 rooms) across the UK and is building 40 additional hotels this year.

The winners of the 2011 Meetings & Incentive Travel Awards were announced on Monday at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge in London.

Zibrant’s managing director, Fay Sharpe, was named M&IT Personality of the Year; recognized for her charitable work including completing the Three Peaks Challenge and house building with Barclays in South Africa.

Birmingham Airport won the Access Excellence award; praised for the impressive investment it had made in facilities for the disabled.

The ceremony was hosted by popular BBC news presenter Kate Silverton, who was joined by fellow newsreader Natasha Kaplinsky, who spoke on behalf of Save the Children. To date, the M&IT Awards have raised more than £800,000 for the charity, including in excess of £53,000 in 2011, raised through an online auction and a raffle on the night. The target for this year’s fund-raising was £40,000 to purchase 20,000 treated mosquito nets for distribution in Tanzania to prevent death among mothers and children in three districts.

More than 1,900 organizations were nominated for the 2011 M&IT Awards, with more than 8,300 votes cast. The results were as follows:

Best UK Hotel
Gold: The Celtic Manor Resort
Silver: The Gleneagles Hotel
Bronze: Chewton Glen
Finalist: The Grove

Best Overseas Hotel
Gold: Fairmont, Monte Carlo
Silver: The Ritz-Carlton Powerscourt
Bronze: Hotel Arts Barcelona
Finalist: Gran Melia Palacio de Isora, Tenerife

Best UK Conference Centre
Gold: Burleigh Court
Silver: Williams F1 Conference Centre
Bronze: Scottish Exhibition + Conference Centre (SECC), Glasgow
Finalist: Harrogate International Centre

Best UK Management Training Centre
Gold: The Møller Centre
Silver: Scarman, Warwick Conferences
Bronze: Conference Aston
Finalist: Highgate House, A Sundial Venue

Best Overseas Conference Centre
Gold: Grimaldi Forum Monaco
Silver: The Convention Centre Dublin
Bronze: Bella Center, Copenhagen
Finalist: Las Vegas Convention Center

Best Venue Group Meeting Product
Gold: Sundial Group
Silver: Marriott Hotels International
Bronze: Hilton Hotels
Finalist: Barceló Hotels & Resorts

Best Intermediary Agency (fewer than 40 employees)
Gold: Principal Promotions
Silver: YES (Your Event Solutions)
Bronze: Technovation (CPM)
Finalist: Absolute Corporate Events

Best Intermediary Agency (more than 40 employees)
Gold: Venues Event Management
Silver: Banks Sadler
Bronze: Zibrant
Finalist: P&MM

Best Destination Management Company
Gold: Vista Events
Silver: TLC Events in Portugal
Bronze: Cititravel DMC Spain & Portugal
Finalist: Allied Europe

Best UK-based Airline
Gold: British Airways
Silver: Virgin Atlantic
Bronze: easyJet
Finalist: Bmi, British Midland International

Best Overseas Based Airline
Gold: Emirates
Silver: Singapore Airlines
Bronze: Qantas
Finalist: KLM Royal Dutch Airlines

Best Academic Venue
Gold: The Conference Park, Warwick Conferences
Silver: Conference Aston
Bronze: Burleigh Court
Finalist: Keele University

Best UK Convention Bureau
Gold: Glasgow City Marketing Bureau
Silver: Conference Leeds
Bronze: Sheffield Convention Bureau (previously Yorkshire South Tourism)
Finalist: The Staffordshire Stoke on Trent Conference Bureau

Best Overseas Convention Bureau
Gold: The Monaco Tourist Authority
Silver: Vienna Convention Bureau
Bronze: Hong Kong Tourism Board
Finalist: BarcelonaTurisme Convention Bureau
Finalist: Rotterdam Marketing

Best UK Unusual Venue
Gold: Altitude 360 London
Silver: The Monastery Manchester
Bronze: Alton Towers Resort
Finalist: Natural History Museum

Best Event Provider
Gold: Yarrington
Silver: Saville Audio Visual
Bronze: Trigger Concepts
Finalist: Sound & Vision

Best Value for Money Conference Venue
Gold: Scarman, Warwick Conferences
Silver: Leicester Conferences, University of Leicester
Bronze: Keele University
Finalist: Highgate House, A Sundial Venue

Best Food and Beverage Supplier
Gold: Kudos Silver: Leith’s
Bronze: Heathcotes Outside
Finalist: Create Food and Party Design

Best Conference and Banqueting Staff
Gold: The Conference Park, Warwick Conferences
Silver: Burleigh Court
Bronze: Conference Aston

Finalist: Keele University

(In the photo, left to right: Antonio Ducceschi, CMM, area director of sales & marketing - Fairmont Monte Carlo; Lionel Pedemay, director of corporate & incentive sales /UK & Germany - Fairmont Monte Carlo; Marck Taylor, special events director - BI company; and Xavier F. Rugeroni, regional vice president & general manager - Fairmont Monte Carlo)

In the movie Poltergeist, the family's house was built on top of a graveyard. I'm unable to get that scenario (and its implication) out of my head when I read that a city council in Redditch, England, is proposing to heat their new pool with heat from a crematorium next door to it. 

Council members say it can save £14,500 a year in heating cost and help with global warming at the same time. 

"I'd much rather use the energy rather than just see it going out of the chimney and heating the sky," council leader Carole Gandy said to Steven Morris, a reporter for The Guardian. "It will make absolutely no difference to the people who are using the crematorium for services. It's only a proposal at the moment, but personally I'm supportive of it because I think it will save the authority money and, in the long-term, save energy which is what we're all being told we should do." 

While I think the idea is a great example of streamlining, I'm wondering how many people can get past the idea of swimming in a pool heated by the dead. Can you?  

Short note on the U.K. economy: The region's GDP increased 1.1 per cent in Q2 2010, compared with an increase of 0.3 per cent in Q1, according to a report by the Office of National Statistics. The largest contribution to the growth was from business services and finance. There was also growth in distribution, hotels and restaurants (0.7 percent), compared with a decrease of 0.7 percent in the previous quarter. In fact, hotels, restaurants and retail contributed most to Q2 growth. All good news for the events sector...