Member Article

Airmic brings international delegates to first Yorkshire conference

Leading insurance and risk management company, Airmic, brought its 2016 conference to Harrogate in June, the first time the annual event has ever been held in Yorkshire. The three-day conference was held at the Harrogate International Centre, the largest exhibition centre for the conference to date. ConferenceLeeds was tasked with the transport and accommodation booking of the 1,700 delegates that came to the Leeds City Region during the conference.

The conference included 40 workshops, 120 stands and several fringe events, as well as a keynote speech from Professor Brian Cox OBE. The programme worked to support Airmic’s strategic objective to be the leading voice in the insurance and risk industry. Over the course of the three days, delegates who have responsibility for insurance and risk programmes within their own companies had the opportunity to learn from industry leaders and network with other delegates.

With such a large number of attendees, Airmic worked closely with ConferenceLeeds to arrange various site visits as well as source delegate accommodation. ConferenceLeeds also linked up with Virgin Trains East Coast as one of its partners to secure an exclusive discount rate of 20% off to enhance the overall delegate package.

Susi Ozkurt, Events and Marketing Manager at Airmic, commented:

“We were incredibly pleased with the success of this year’s conference. Finding accommodation for 1,700 delegates and then transporting them to the conference destination certainly isn’t an easy task, but ConferenceLeeds was able to handle everything. This meant that much of the venue liaison and arrangement of accommodation was completely alleviated, giving us more capacity to handle the successful running of the conference itself.”

Jennifer Young, Head of ConferenceLeeds, added:

“We were delighted to work with Airmic for its 2016 conference. In light of the fact that finance and business is a key sector strength for the Leeds City Region, the conference allowed us to showcase the best of what the Leeds City Region in its entirety has to offer, showcasing the breadth of its venues - from city centre to purpose built international centres. We knew the team was proactively looking for a venue in Harrogate, so the Harrogate International Centre, with over 13,700 square metres of event space, was the best possible host for such a large and vibrant conference.”

Heidi Rowan, Business Development Manager at Virgin Trains East Coast, said:

“Airmic’s 2016 conference was a good opportunity for us to showcase how we can work with conferencing destinations to enhance the delegate experience and improve connectivity between key UK cities. The partnership with ConferenceLeeds and the exclusive discount rate for attendees helped us to generate a total of 111 passengers in the lead up to the event, 90% of which had never travelled with us before. Partnerships such as this allow Leeds to showcase its brilliant transport links both nationally and internationally.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Richard Savage .