New Year update!!

A very, very belated Happy New Year!!! We’re not entirely sure what happened to January & February!!! - We have been unbelievably busy in the Bell Events offices (plural as this also included an office move!!)

The New Year has bought us two new staff members, Lucy Ransome & Cora Jackson who have both settled in very quickly and hit the ground running working on live enquiries straight away! We were very sad to see Sarah leave us at Christmas after a very successful 18 months here. Sarah is pursuing a career in hospitality and we wish her every success.

Since the start of January we’ve had a record breaking 83 enquiries in 8 weeks!!! We’re proud to say that we have still managed to keep to our tight turn around times and have already confirmed 24 of these events!!!

We have also managed to squeeze in a few events and trips….

Laura travelled to London for a day to visit some of our clients and finally managed to have a brief glimpse around the impressive Ned hotel at long last!

Lucy attended the Accor networking event at the Mercure Hotel in Manchester, which also gave her the opportunity to experience the stunning International Suite which can hold up to 800 delegates in theatre layout!! Lucy had 10 minutes with each sales member, learning about the Accor properties from Doncaster to Dubai, Amsterdam to St Andrews and many more between!! Lucy was very lucky to win a nights stay including dinner, bed & breakfast and a spa treatment at the stunning Albrighton Hall in Shrewsbury which she’s looking forward to using later in the year!

Laura, Lucy and Cora also attended the Four Seasons Networking evening at 20 Stories, Manchester where they met with 26 of the groups hotels during a worldwide sales tour – the hoteliers had travelled from all over the globe including Kula Lumpur, Jonannesburg, Lisbon, Mauritius and the brand new Astir Palace in Athens - Laura was particularly interested to speak to them as we have a large enquiry holding with them for 2020 - we have since arranged for our client to site visit them in April so we are excited to hear their feedback!!

Lucy attended her first fam trip to Haydock Racecourse where she was treated to a fun afternoon racing in a private box overlooking the track! Lucy was lucky to have a few winners and also test the excellent service and food on offer for corporate groups and events during her day! – Along with testing the bar too, all for research purposes of course!!

Cora has also attended her first fam trip which was to the luxurious Sheraton Grand London, Park Lane!! (Setting the bar pretty high for future fams!)

Cora loved the art deco style of the 1920 heritage building and the ambience of the lavish Palm Court where she had chance to relax with a glass of wine! Cora had a tour of the magnificent hotel familiarising herself with the different restaurants, bars and conference spaces, including the beautiful and very impressive Ballroom which can hold up to 440 guests for a dinner.

Becca had 5 days off to visit the Big Apple which gave her a great understanding of the areas and attractions in New York after she covered miles and miles exploring (and also spotted numerous hotels along the way)!!

We’ve also had 12 appointments with hotels and suppliers, with representatives travelling from Europe and the UK to present their properties and let us know about their latest updates and refurbs!

Laura also hosted our first client event of the year at the iconic Titanic Hotel, Liverpool with 5 of our lovely clients and their guests! It was great to get clients into the hotel as the images just don’t do it justice to fully appreciate the scale of the spaces available, the main room being the Rum Warehouse which can hold up to 1,000 delegates!! We were treated to a delicious 3 course dinner in the Stanley’s Bar & Grill, followed by listening to a live singer in the Rum Bar with cocktails and coffee before retiring to our huge, spacious bedrooms!!

Thank you as always to our amazing and loyal clients for keeping us so busy, our family & friends for supporting us and suppliers and hotels for keeping up with our demanding response times and our tough negotiations!! – We always want to ensure we have the best for our clients!!

March is looking to be just as busy with our third new team member of the year, Eva Smith joining us on the 4th March!! We have lots of fam trips, venue visits, meetings and events planned so watch this space!!