What's New in Conferences?

16th May 2013, Jon Young followed Alan Clark (CEO of Northern Ireland Tourist Board) in speaking at the North Wales Tourism Business AGM. 

Jon spoke about the emerging travel and holiday trends in 2013.  He focused on trends relevant to attractions and accommodation providers, the importance of review sites, and the growing presence of SoLoMo (social local mobile).

His presentation was drawn from a range of data taken from various Travel Tourism and Leisure team consultations over the last few years.

For more information, contact Jon Young 0207 400 1010

On Wednesday 15th May Steve Mills spoke about ‘the power of benchmarking’ at the Museums and Heritage show.

His session explored how benchmarking against your peers both within and outside your sector can generate the actionable insights required to continually deliver a first class visitor experience. It drew upon the ALVA Visitor Experience Benchmarking Survey, the UK’s most comprehensive national visitor benchmarking study, consisting of over 50 venues and discussed the core components of the visitor experience - operational service, interaction and emotional engagement - and how these interact to generate a brand new overall visitor experience benchmark.

For more information, contact Steve Mills 0207 400 0381

The Westminster Business Forum seminar brought together stakeholders from across business and the financial sector with policymakers and regulators to assess what more can be done in this area to support private sector recovery.

Shiona Davies spoke on SME access to finance looking at the trends and expectations gleaned from the research undertaken by our Business and Finance team.

For more information, contact Shiona Davies 020 7490 9124

The PhonepayPlus forum looked at the current market landscape for premium rate services (PRS) and updates on how PhonepayPlus’s Code continues to meet these on-going developments. All areas of the PRS value-chain were represented at this event, and the audience included representatives of the major telephone networks, commercial TV broadcasters, and many content providers.

Tim Barber and James Myring presented the interim results of our research into the current and emerging trends in the UK premium rate telecoms services market. They later sat on a panel to answer questions from the audience about the research.

The research involves interviews with consumers, businesses and other stakeholders, as well as market data modelling, enabling a comprehensive view of the marketplace to be established

For more information, contact Tim Barber 020 7490 9121

Innovation in Market Research was the theme for the Singapore Conference of the Global Market Research Alliance held at the prestigious Raffles Hotel on Friday 1 March 2013.

 Cris Tarrant, CEO of Global member BDRC Group, presented a key paper entitled Service Intensity....for heads and hearts.  

This paper describes BDRC Continental's proprietary approach to diagnosing the strengths and vulnerabilities inherent in any supplier-client relationship.  Launched in 2011, this technique helps service organisations to understand the balance between rational, emotional and customer effort inputs in their customer exchanges, and tailor their service proposition accordingly.

For more information, email Cris Tarrant (cris.tarrant@bdrc-continental.com)

Mark Long, Director in the Financial and Business team, delivered the keynote presentation at the British Property Federation's annual Residential conference in London on 27 February 2013.

Mark's paper, 'PRS State of the Nation', is a research-based assessment of the UK's private rented sector, making extensive use of BDRC Continental's Landlords Panel insight programme. The presentation touches upon landlord confidence and drivers, profitability, portfolio sizing and profiling and Buy To Let engagement. 

For more information, contact Mark Long on 020 7400 1016.

Back for another year, the Hotels Insight Forum 2012 - Sprinkle Stardust or Deliver Vanilla? Customer Engagement and Retention - explores loyalty marketing programmes through presentations from key industry players. Looking at Business Planning in Context, The Guest Experience, and The Future of Loyalty Marketing Programmes, the conference will also include a live focus group on Understanding the True Impact of Loyalty Programmes.

This year's event is on Monday 10th December at Park Plaza, Westminster Bridge.

For more information, contact Jude Bissert or James Bland 020 7400 1026

Mark Long presented 'Life as a Buy to Let Landlord' at the Mortgage Solutions' Mortgage Event in Nottingham on 5th December 2012. His paper includes a brief 'state of the nation' overview of the PRS and BTL sectors and key insights drawn from our Landlords Panel study.

For more information, please contact Mark Long 020 7400 1016

Our Media and Tech team will be attending the Media Research Group Conference 2012 in Monte Carlo on 14th-17th November. The conference, this year entitled 'Are we gambling with the truth?', is an opportunity for the industry to come together and discuss key issues, provoke debate and share best practice. 

For more information, contact Max Willey 020 490 9168

Our Sports & Sponsorship division is proud sponsor of the Football Business Awards on 8th November. Mark Long, Director, will be handing out the award for Club Sponsorship / Partnership of the Year. Finalists needs to demonstrate examples of sponsorships that create meaningful value for both parties. Not simply the size of the deal but the degree of integration and partnership activation will be taken into account. Any form of commercial partnership could qualify for this category provided it demonstrates clear ROI for the partners and creative thinking. 

For more information, contact Mark Long on 020 7400 1016.

Our culture and leisure team are once again proud to sponsor the Visitor Attractions Conference, the annual national conference for visitor attractions in the UK, on 11 October 2012.

In addition to a stand at the event, where the team will be sharing the latest industry insights, Director Steve Mills will be taking part in two panel discussions - at 10:05 he'll be discussing '2012 – A year to remember, a springboard for greater success' before talking 'Promotional pricing: Profit, Problems and Pitfalls' at 16:10.

For more information contact Steve Mills on 020 7400 0381.

Richard Smith, Director of Qualitative Services, presented at the Chartered Institute of Marketing's late summer reception on Thursday 4 October. Entitled 'The Future of Marketing'.  This event, organised by CIM's Finance Interest Group, explored the PEST circumstances for the next five years.

Richard's presentation considered consumer trends, changes in buyer behaviours, attitudes and lifestyle, and the impact that these will have on communications and distribution channels.  It was described as "superb, with some thought provoking stuff".

For more information, contact Richard Smith 020 7400 1018

Our Hotels, Meetings and Hospitality team participated at The Annual Hotel Conference at the Hilton Manchester Deansgate on 3 and 4 October.

CEO, Cris Tarrant, moderated a lively debate on the meaning of branding, preceded by this presentation.

Sophia Papadopoulos, Client Services Manager, took part in a panel debate entitled "Like, Tweet or Bust" - Are you logging on? The session included some hard and fast rules on how to manage social media.

For more information, contact Sophia Papadopoulos 020 7400 0377

Rebecca Hunt presented key insights into rail passenger travel at the ATOC Interchange and Integrated Transport Conference on 27th September 2012. Bringing together Train Operating Companies, Local Authorities and Consultants to the Transport industry, the event focused on major policy in sustainable transport planning.

Rebecca, Research Director in the Transport team, presented findings from our recent study which investigated rail passengers' onward journey to a final destination and the information they need to help them get there. Her presentation also focused on encouraging rail passengers to use more sustainable transport for later legs of the journey.

For more information, contact Rebecca Hunt 020 490 9148.