7
Academic Venues
“Investment
has changed
perceptions”
Worth the investment
Emma Boynton, head of sales and marketing, Imago Venues,
shares how the organisation is reaping the benefit of spending
oughborough University is
now ranked 6th best
university in the UK; a fact
that Imago Venues can only
benefit from. Research suggests
that university intake across the UK
is likely to be lower over the next few
years, which means the fight for
individual students is growing ever
fiercer. Universities are reacting with
on-going improvements to
infrastructure, facilities and their
overall offering, which in turn is
having a significant impact on the
quality of facilities available for
meetings, conference and event
organisers.
Here at Loughborough, for
example, we have just been voted
the world’s best university for sport
for the second year running. It is an
incredibly powerful demonstration of
our credibility and quality, which is
reflected across the whole university
and consequently the conference
offering managed by Imago Venues.
Such investment, where
universities have made it, has
dramatically changed perceptions of
academic venues among event
organisers. Those universities at the
forefront of the academic venue
offering have developed corporate
brands that place them firmly
alongside private sector
competitors, including purpose-built
conference centres and hotels.
Accommodation is no longer
limited to single beds with no
en-suite, and the catering offer is
now an experience that provides
healthy and nutritious options,
Above:
Emma Boynton, head of sales
and marketing, Imago Venues
www.conference-news.co.uk
rather than a buffet style canteen.
Many clients also perceive academic
venues to be a positive CSR-focused
solution to their event needs, given
that profits are invested back into
further education.
New investments, such as our £7m
Elite Athlete Centre (EAC), also mean
we are gaining momentum in new
markets. The EAC is part of a wider
development that will see 615
bedrooms added to our “active
zone” – a project that the University
is managing, rather than using third
parties, to ensure the end product
meets the highest possible
standards. The result is that
agencies, for example, are seeing a
more rounded and complete offering
in many academic venues, certainly
here at Loughborough, and they
appreciate we can meet all their
needs through professional,
purpose-built facilities, staffed by
industry experts who truly
understand delegate needs.
Most academic venues have
speciality and niche clients because
they fit with the university’s wider
profile. Here at Imago Venues, we
actively target and host a significant
number of national and international
sporting related meetings,
conferences and events. These can
range from sports governing bodies
through to corporate sponsors and
those companies and associations
focused on nutrition and wellbeing.
These are supported by academic
events as well as clients from tech
sectors where our faculty also has a
high profile.