Monday Insights – May 30th

This Monday’s Insights feature brings you the industry headlines you may have missed from the previous week.

Headlines

The winners of the 15th annual Stadium Events and Hospitality Awards 2022 were announced on Friday 26 May, at Anfield Stadium.

The Stadium Events and Hospitality Awards celebrate the best UK football and rugby stadia venues and raise the profile of fantastic matchday hospitality and specialist events teams. The 2022 awards took place in the 20th Anniversary year of the organisers, Stadium Experience – a not-for-profit marketing collaboration of around 40 football, rugby and cricket club venues across the UK.

You can view the full list of deserving winners and runners-up in each category on Conference News.

The team behind EDGE Venues would like to congratulate all of the winners.

The Scottish Event Campus (SEC) has pledged to plant a tree for every meeting the company hosts at IMEX this week. The venue, which recently announced its ambition to achieve net-zero by 2030, hosted the COP26 conference last year.

The OVO Hydro, one of the three main venues on the SEC campus, is the world’s first arena to achieve the ‘A Greener Arena Certification. Additionally, the company has introduced sustainable ‘stack cups’ for live events, which will reduce the venue’s carbon emissions by 1,500 tonnes over ten years.

The SEC has made further significant moves to reduce its carbon footprint in recent years. 100% of the venue’s electricity comes from renewable sources. And the business continues to work towards activities that encourage sustainable behaviour across every facet of its operations.

As part of this, the SEC will plant a tree in the Caledonian Forest on behalf of everyone the team meets at IMEX. The business already has an existing relationship with the local charity, Trees for Life, which it has worked with for the last 15 years, contributing to the growth of 170,000. Through the meetings next week, the venue is looking to continue to build on that figure.

“We’ve set our ambition for net zero by 2030 and its something both ourselves and our clients want to talk about,” commented Kathleen Warden, Director of Conference Sales, Scottish Event Campus.

“The Trees for Life initiative at IMEX underlines that we’re threading sustainability into everything we do, from our operations to our sales and marketing. It’s also a way to do something positive for the people we meet at the event.”

Kathleen Warden, Director of Conference Sales, Scottish Event Campus.

The SEC is exhibiting at IMEX on stand F420 alongside Glasgow Convention Bureau & VisitScotland.

Check out M&IT editor Paul Harvey’s report from the opening day of the Elizabeth line – and find out why it’s going to be a game-changer for the event industry.

The need to recognise the economic impact of business events is as strong as ever, Chief executive officer of the Association of Events Organisers (AEO) Chris Skeith OBE has told Exhibition News.

Chris says that while the impact of Covid-19 and the restrictions it carried was a bitter pill to swallow for the events industry, it accelerated action on important areas that had historically been slow to progress.

Read more on how AEO positioned public affairs, diversity, inclusion, and sustainability at the top of the agenda together with AEV and ESSA.

European hotel prices are exceeding pre-pandemic levels. According to a feature on BTN Europe, industry specialist STR says average daily rates (ADR) are six per cent higher than pre-Covid. 

Ireland is reportedly leading the recovery, with rates 21 per cent higher than comparable 2019 levels in May. Portugal follows Ireland (18 per cent higher) and Spain (14 per cent higher). 

STR’s managing director expects Europe to follow a similar recovery trajectory to that seen in the US. The US has seen ADR surpass 2019 rates and group demand has reached 90 per cent of pre-pandemic levels. 

Read more about the rate changes, destinations, and occupancy rates that are trending towards a full recovery, on BTN Europe.