Bury Lodge hotel has transformed its 16th century barn into a venue for meetings and corporate functions.
The barn provides an expansive open space for up to 200 delegates and is suitable for gala dinners and presentations, with a separate break out room available.
The barn overlooks the hotels landscaped gardens. The property also provides 19 individually decorated rooms for overnight stays in historic buildings. Authentic features include exposed beams, rustic barn door ways and aged wooden floors.
Situated in the Essex countryside, Bury Lodge is located only five minutes away from Stansted Mountfitchet Railway Station and 15 minutes away from London Stansted Airport.
The newest member of the Village Hotels group is Village Bristol. Opening on the 3rd December 2018 this new hotel will have 153 bedrooms and 6 high tech meeting rooms to offer. Located north of Bristol, it will have parking onsite and conveniently located close to UWE Exhibition and Conference Centre. The hotel will have a Business Club, pub, restaurant, Starbucks, gym and swimming pool.
The hotel group have launched a new Conference HUB which will give delegates a variety of healthy brain food.
8 of the hotels, Watford, Farnborough, Cardiff, Solihull, Coventry, Walsall, Ashton and Leeds South are currently completing major refurbishment works to include a Business Club and combined Pub and Grill concept.
Mottram Hall hotel in Cheshire is to undergo a £10m refurbishment following its acquisition by spa resort group Champneys and is expected to be completed by the end of 2019.
Built in 1721, Mottram Hall is set within a 270-acre estate and was transformed from a private residence to a hotel in 1940 and owned by the De Vere group from the mid-1970s to 2014.
The acquisition marks Champneys first resort inthe north of the England, adding to its spa resort locations at Forest Mere, Hampshire; Henlow, Bedfordshire; Springs, Leicestershire; and Tring, Hertfordshire.
The redevelopment of Mottram Hall will include a £5m redesign of the hotel’s spa facilities involving the addition of 18 treatment rooms, a new 20m swimming pool. There will also be the addition of 30 bedrooms to the current 120, new conference facilities and an extension to the club house on the championship golf course.
Automotive events specialist Millbrook Venues has opened a new building close to its high speed circuit, hill route and off-road tracks.
The new venue near Milton Keynes can hold up to 200 delegates in a brand new property, which is being described as a “blank-canvas solution for events of all types.”
Millbrook is a popular location for vehicle-based events, offering a combination of several venues, catering and private test tracks,
It already has venues ‘Cubo’ (up to 30 delegates) and Pod (up to 80 delegates) Concepts 1 and 2 (up to 350 and 1,000 delegates, respectively).
Its 864sqm space can be split into two, using a built-in folding partition. The also has several other rooms for operations and break-out sessions, and direct access to the test tracks.
Working within the MICE industry for over 20 years, we have really seen the role of venues change when it comes to event planning and the relationships they hold with agencies and clients.
Traditionally the venue would provide a conference space, catering and accommodation based on the needs of the client. However, as event agencies look for new and exciting ways to help bring their message to life and create memorable experiences for their delegates, venues are stepping up and becoming important parts of the overall planning process.
HBAA Forum success
A recent and fantastic example of this new way of working can be taken from the HBAA’s Annual Forum, held recently at the Crowne Plaza in Stratford-upon-Avon. While the venue provided a great blank canvas for our event, it meant we had to be extra creative on how to bring our festival theme to life, which was really important in creating an experience for our members.
While the HBAA events committee managed the agenda, registrations and the overall logistics of the event, they worked really closely with the team at the venue who supported us every step of the way and went above and beyond to help create our chosen festival theme.
The venue team embraced our vision in the planning stages, doing everything from sourcing local florist suppliers for our table centrepieces and creating a bespoke outside bar to enhance our theme to providing impressive bell tents for welcome and registration. Responding to our request for street food carts for the dinner, the venue knew this wasn’t its area of expertise, but instead of saying ‘no’ to the idea, venue staff went the extra mile and brought in external caterers to make our vision a reality.
In previous experiences, venues have been limited in flexibility in this type of offering, being relatively strict on catering and inflexible on many client requests that were not in line with their traditional room offering. The extent the venue team went to was a great experience for the HBAA and provided us with a real collaborative and flexible way of working.
In summary…
It’s good to witness venues going over and above their traditional role and starting to work as an extension of the events team. In my opinion this is a huge step forward in the industry and something we should and will start seeing more of in the future.
Hyatt Place London City/East will be a 280-room hotel located on Whitechapel Road in Aldgate and is set to open in 2020. Hyatt Place London City/East will be the third Hyatt Place hotel in Greater London, joining Hyatt Place London Heathrow Airport and Hyatt Place West London/Hayes.
The hotel will feature a ninth-floor lounge and terrace providing scenic views across London, a flexible meeting room concept, further lobby area, inner courtyard, gym, and a grab-and-go food market.
London's newest five-star hotel – The Rubens at the Palace
One of the most historic and luxurious hotels in London, The Rubens at the Palace hotel overlooking the Royal Mews of Buckingham Palace in London’s Victoria, has now been classified a five-star hotel by the distinguished AA hotel rating-scheme after the completion of a multi-million-pound refurbishment earlier this year.
The hotel’s advancements, including two elegant new restaurants, The English Grill and the Curry Room, two vibrant bars, The Leopard Bar, offering a choice of over 200 whiskies an 30 Champagnes complete with music from a live jazz and swing band and the vibrant New York Bar. Fully renovated accommodation and public areas, have been recognised via an independent AA assessment resulting in an upgrade to five-star status.
The Crowne Plaza Geneva hotel is located at Geneva Airport. This very modern and elegant 4 star hotel can boast that they have the largest standard room inventory of any 4 star hotel in Switzerland with 309 newly renovated rooms.
The former Ramada hotel which was last renovated in 2014 added 2 additional floors, the 7th and 8th floor. The 8th floor offers Club Lounge guests floor to ceiling windows and views out over the city.
The hotel is close to the Palexpo Conference and Exhibition centre making it a good choice for delegates and leisure guests. 15 minutes and you can reach the town centre, tourist attractions and luxury shops that Geneva has to offer.
A multi-million pound 3 storey extension to the terminal building has been announced for Leeds-Bradford airport. It is expected to be completed by the end of 2019 and will accommodate baggage reclaim, customs, immigration and international arrivals process.
Once the new building is completed, works will then commence on re-modelling the existing terminal building to provide a new security central search area, enhanced check-in facilities, and a simplification of the customer journey through the existing departure lounge, which will also include new retail and Food & Beverage offers.
This work is expected to be complete for summer 2020.
Point A Hotels set to open in Edinburgh and Kensington
Budget-boutique brand Point A Hotels are due to open two new properties in 2019 in Edinburgh and London’s Kensington.
Point A Edinburgh will be located close to Haymarket Station when it opens in June, with 149 bedrooms. Point A London Kensington, opening July, will feature 103 bedrooms in a new building with a retained late-Victorian façade on West Cromwell Road near Earl’s Court station.
the new properties will join the six Point A hotels in London – in Shoreditch, Liverpool Street, King’s Cross St Pancras, Paddington, Westminster and Canary Wharf – and one in Glasgow.
