A plc required a ‘country house’ style venue to accommodate an internal 2-day divisional meeting in May for 40 delegates. It needed to be a fairly central location as attendees would be driving, so it was agreed a Midlands/Warwickshire venue with ample car parking onsite would be preferred.

The Company

This organisation is a leading global pharmaceutical company specialising in dermatology and thromboembolic care. Their headquarters is located in Denmark and they have employees in 61 countries, with their products being sold in more than 100 countries.

The Challenge

Our account management team submitted four venue options to the client that matched brief requirements, location and budget.  An accompanied site visit of each property was undertaken with the client and their account manager. A site visit report was produced including our recommendations based on the show round, our previous experiences with each of the venues and our thoughts and feedback on the venue we felt would be most suitable. The client then selected their preferred venue.  This was actually the option that we felt would be least suitable.  However, in situations such as this, we can only advise and consult, so we confine ourselves to just giving our reasons for cautioning against the choice.  Ultimately, we will do what the client feels is best for them and their event.

Once the venue had been contracted the client came back to us due to numerous issues, errors and inflexibilities on the venue’s part.  They eventually decided that they could not proceed because the original requirements could now not be met. We immediately intervened and visited the venue to try and rectify the situation and rebuild the relationship, but they were not prepared to salvage the booking and continued to deal with the client in a rude and unhelpful manner.

The Solution

Our team re-approached the other three original venues and site visited and managed to secure The Lygon Arms.  The hotel matched the previously contracted rates, despite being a more expensive option. We also managed to factor in a number of ‘added values’ by working closely with the hotel.  We also had support from the hotel group, with which we have a good relationship.  They recognised the opportunity of working closely with this client in order to secure future business, both at this property and at other hotels within the group. The account manager went to the venue the week prior to the event to clarify the final details and was also on hand to ensure that the event ran smoothly.  All the arrangements were very last minute, but this support allowed the client to focus on the materials and agenda required internally.

Successes

- Trinity met with the owner and the General Manager of the hotel which was originally chosen and negotiated cancellation charges down from full payment to 25%
- Feedback from the actual event was extremely positive from both a delegate perspective and the end client
- The chosen venue worked with flexibility and in line with the client’s requirements, allowing them to make any amendments as they went along, something which they would not have been able to do with the original venue
- We have subsequently placed numerous events with the hotel group, resulting in a preferred agreement and better rates for our client at this group’s hotels
- We now work with the customer on a sole agency basis.  They also use our meeting and spend management system, which monitors all of their events and provides them with our up-to-date site visit reports, including overall impressions, considerations and post-event feedback