Conference Centres of Excellence Defining quality

Executive Directory Anthony Lishman explains quality assessment for Conference Centres of Excellence - the UK's leading consortium of specialist meeting and training venues.

"The recent publicity and resulting media interest regarding the national rating schemes and common standards continues to keep quality and the perception of quality in the spotlight, at Conference Centres of Excellence it's something that is never far from our thoughts.

As a collection of 41 quality specialist venues, and growing, it's where we started some 22 years ago, albeit rather modestly with 5 or so founding venues forming the association to define quality in our sector. We continue to recruit only the very best Conference, Meeting and Training venues, whether they are residential or non residential, city based or set in beautiful countryside, they all have one common link, quality.

In our view quality is not about a tick box exercise or the opinions of one ratings organisation or another, yes you have to demonstrate you have all your systems in place, train your frontline team well and ensure they deliver.

For Conference Centres of Excellence it's about the customers experience measured against their own expectations, we set the bar pretty high to start with, with Excellence a key part of our name. The decision making process for customers, when first choosing a venue, starts with a certain level of expectation, but first to be a customer they have to choose what they believe to be the right venue to support their event. And how do they do that? Well peer to peer recommendation is important, the likes of trip advisor or professional venue finding agency are also important.

However find a brand or quality collective like Conference Centres of Excellence where you know the inherent commitment is to excellent service delivery which runs through all its members, experience one and you know the next time you need a venue it's a simple choice, find another Conference Centres of Excellence member. It won't look the same, but that's not a bad thing, it will just feel right.

Ongoing quality measurement has to move with the times and we know you can't just take our word for it, our members consistently win our industries top awards, we want to maintain our reputation as the leading quality brand for nationwide specialist venues."