Cotswold Conference Centre Claims Tourism Awards

Cotswold Conference Centre continued its amazing year of awards after winning one category and being highly commended in a second at the Worcestershire Welcome Awards.

The ceremony, held on Thursday night at Sixways Stadium, saw the best businesses from across Worcestershire come together to celebrate the county’s visitor attractions and tourism industry.

Cotswold Conference Centre – part of the Farncombe group of businesses, near Broadway – won the Business Tourism Award for the second year in a row and was also highly commended in the Sustainable Tourism category.

The event was organised by Destination Worcestershire and each finalist was selected on the basis of customer nominations.

Nick Vincent, Chief Executive at the Three Counties Showground, judged the Business Tourism category.

He said: “I was particularly impressed with the website, facilities, policy of supporting and promoting local suppliers and the external methods of obtaining customer feedback. I had no idea Cotswold Conference Centre also won this award last year.”

Cotswold Conference Centre is a modern meeting, training and teambuilding venue. It holds dozens of conferences each year and also plays host to Farncombe Courses, which offers a wide range of leisure and activity weekends.

Richard Howdle, operations manager at Cotswold Conference Centre, said: “It’s been an incredible year for us, winning numerous awards at local, regional and national levels.

“The staff are rightly very proud of these accolades. As well as a morale boost, entering these categories is one of the ways that we constantly strive to maintain and drive up our performance by looking to improve each year.”

Cotswold Conference Centre has won four other prestigious awards in 2012, including the Visit England Award for Excellence, which recognised it as the best business tourism venue in the UK.

The three other titles were the Green Tourism Business Scheme (GTBS) highlighting the centre’s commitment to sustainability, the Cotswold Tourism award venue of the year and the VenueVerdict Gold Standard for outstanding customer service.

The business is situated on the 320-acre Farncombe Estate between Cheltenham and Stratford-upon-Avon. For more information www.cotswoldconferencecentre.com. 

Worcestershire's Finest Welcome!

Cotswold Conference Centre is the proud holder of the Worcestershire Welcome Business Tourism Award for 2011. The announcement was made on Friday night at the Malvern Showground, scene of the famous Three Counties show.

Business Tourism is one of several award categories organised by Destination Worcestershire and it qualifies us to compete for VisitEngland's national Excellence Awards.

"I am thrilled we won on the night," said Head of Sales Nick Akerman, "but particularly because the final shortlist was based on customer nominations."

Bill Munn, HR Director at construction company Thomas Vale, judged the Business Tourism category and praised our outstanding customer service.

Silver Award puts Cotswold Conference Centre firmly on the map as leading venue

“It is such a thrill to be recognised again as a centre of excellence by our peers in the meetings industry” – Nick Akerman.

The Cotswold Conference Centre has been awarded ‘Silver’ in the Business Tourism Awards at the annual Heart of England Regional Tourism Awards – a step up on last year’s achievement of ‘highly commended’.

On-going investment and continued excellent standards of customer service were cited by the judges as some of the reasons why the centre had raised the bar this year.

Nick Akerman, head of sales at the facility, received the award with colleague Richard Howdle (operations manager) at a black tie dinner held at the Great Hall at the University of Birmingham. On receiving the award Mr Akerman said: “We have been awarded the silver for doing what we do well - it is such a thrill to be recognised again as a centre of excellence by our peers in the meetings industry. It is particularly pleasing to continue to put Worcestershire and the Midlands region on the map as a leading area for holding meetings, training courses and conferences”.

Mark Philip-Sorensen took on the running of the 370-acre facility which specialises in 24/7 training and learning for the corporate and leisure markets following the death of his father, Jorgen Philip-Sorensen. Mark said of the decision: “We have superb facilities here and a great team of people. The environment we have in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is also complemented by the ‘can-do’ culture of our long serving staff. In such a positive environment we are able to put on better and more effective courses both for business and pleasure, hence enabling clients to get a good return on their objectives”.

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Originally uploaded by Jas Sansi P H O T O G R A P H Y

Cotswold Conference Centre receive the Silver award for Business Tourism (Nick Akerman and Richard Howdle) 21 October 2010