Summer City Adventure

Monday 22nd saw the latest MMIE gathering, this time kindly hosted by Richard Morrell at The Palace Hotel. The purpose of the meeting was to update the group on progress made in addressing the promotion of Manchester as a family friendly summer destination specifically between 16th July - 6th September, for 2009 and onwards.


After the customary bacon butties Mike Magrane (General Manager, The Midland Hotel) opened proceedings by updating the group on the positive progress made over the previous weeks with both Marketing Manchester and LateRooms. It is expected that by the end of April, participating hotels will have family friendly rates available through Laterooms.


Desmeana Johnson of Marketing Manchester followed Mike with an unveiling of the new VisitManchester website due to launch over the coming weeks. The new website will include information on family friendly activity and is planned to link through to the Laterooms site to help families get the best information and deals for Manchester.


Howard Raynor of World Class Service also gave an update on the current trend of the 'Staycation' and that with the pound remaining weak against the Euro and Dollar, Britain remains an attractive proposition to holiday makers both at home and from abroad...the time is now to make the most of this opportunity. Howard also reminded the group about the new Manchester Made it Easy website is now available. For more information contact Andrew at World Class Service


Again, there was a great turn out with over 40 present and plenty of discussion from the floor, a lot of which focussed on the the concentration and kinds of events which could take place over this summer period in the coming years. Marketing Manchester and CityCo have committed to developing a long term strategy in promoting Manchester as a summer destination, and the MMIE gatherings are proving to be a productive forum for hoteliers, venues, cultural institutions, festivals and retailers to discuss the best way to move forward together.


The will be another meeting in around four weeks to update the group. In the meantime please send information on events (both for the summer and rest of the year) through to makeila.ellis@marketingmanchester.com

Early bird offer: Manchester Made it Easy website

The Manchester Made it Easy website has been launched at www.manchestermadeiteasy.co.uk

As well as being a one-stop-shop for hospitality and culture/leaisure businesses, the Manchester Made it Easy website is a great tool for customer facing staff. It has all the up-to-date and unbiased information that is key to delivering world class service.

Key features and benefits are:

· All the latest information from Manchester Made it Easy, including the latest on the Summer City

· A business to business website, giving the competitive advantage with up to date information on high profile conferences, openings, large scale events and news.

· Ideal for forecasting, planning and sales campaigns.

· A one-stop-shop for Manchester

· Up to date, accurate information on shopping, dining, retail, cultural opportunities and professional support all in one place

· Built, hosted and maintained in Manchester

· Suggested itineraries for different customer groups

· No pop ups, no advertising or pay for placement

· Fast, clean, easy to use

· Designed for service professionals.

· Key links for guest support

· Weekly “What’s on” sent every Monday covering key recommendations

The website is designed so that your team can save time, make confident recommendations and add value for each customer. It allows junior members of the team to provide good levels of service, even without the knowledge of their more experienced colleagues.

The Manchester Made it Easy website is geared to be a one-stop-shop and is updated on a regular basis so your team can provide interesting and personalised solutions

Happily, the service is just £10/wk. (£520/yr) per license.

Early bird discount: Sign up before April 15th to take advantage of a 10% (£52) discount on your subscription for the first 12 months

We hope that you will support us by subscribing to the site and getting involved with all activities. If you, your manager or general manager would like to subscribe or would like to discuss further then please email Andrew at World Class Service.

Our new website

Manchester Made it Easy now has a website www.manchestermadeiteasy.co.uk

Classic Films at the Odeon in Manchester

Jaws, Goodfellas, Superman, Robocop, Jurassic Park, Enter the Dragon et al. back on the big screen in Manchester. What's not to love?

• Jaws March 8th
• Enter the Dragon March 15th
• Goodfellas March 22nd
• Superman March 29th
• Jurassic Park April 5th
• Robocop April 12th
• Saving Private Ryan April 19th
• The Karate Kid April 26th

Visit the odeon website to book your tickets. For group bookings of 15 or more contact the Events team at the odeon

Summer City Adventure

The period from 12th July to the end of August 2010 is of particular concern to business in the city centre; specifically to hotels, leisure and retail businesses. The point of the Made it Easy meeting this morning at The Midland was to move from the discussions of 2009 about being a joined up leisure city to an action orientation in 2010. Manchester the resort! The summer is an ideal candidate, how do we know it's ideal? 43 people showed up for the meeting!

After bacon butties, coffee and Mike Magrane, GM at The Midland set out the goal of creating a credible summer proposition in Manchester, this year and every year.

Howard Raynor then followed up with a presentation about how making Manchester more family friendly this summer was a straightforward matter of co-ordinating the fantastic recources currently available in to smart itineraries and illustrated his argument with what's on in the city, what assets there are for the public. You can see this presentation by going to the World Class Service web site.

The floor was then opened up for discussion.

Key features arising fro the discussion were:

1. The concept is essentially worth more effort. Manchester could do better if we were more joined up in communicating whats on.

2. The venues and hotels need to agree the package and discounting that they can can offer.

3. Marketing Manchester will provide a e:mail entry point for people to send event information to.

4. Marketing Manchester and CityCO will co-ordinate the marketing activity to the consumer and liaise with Late Rooms.

5. Family friendly is definitely the agreed way forward. Activity led rather than destination led was also emphasised during the meeting.

6. World Class Service, through their current Manchester Concierge site, and this blog will keep people informed on progress and on the activity in the city this summer. This process will take the form of links and portals as well as overviews of key information and smaller organisations which may not be part of bigger consortia.

World Class may convert one its sites in to a business to business information point to help provide lead information for planning as well as day to day information. If we do this it will end up being paid for service due to the scale of maintenance and content management.

7. Mike Magrane will be running various related meetings with Visit Manchester and the MHA Sales Forum to try and iron out difficulties in product development.

8. Mike will also be having conversations about identity and key messages.

9. It was agreed we should meet again in a month's time to see how much progress has been made.

PLEASE BOOKMARK THIS BLOG, CLICK FOR RSS FEED AND CONTRIBUTE TO THE ARGUMENT

kind regards

Howard

Not-for-profit Wine Course at Harvey Nichols

Following the success of the previous courses at Harvey Nichols, the Second Floor will be hosting a new WSET Intermediate Course.

If you've ever wanted to wow your friends with knowlege of grape varieties, or New vs Old world wines, the this could be the course for you.

This course is ideal for those in the industry who have some knowlegde or wine enthusiasts who wish to acquire in-depth knowledge of wines and want to obtain a recognised wine qualification.

The course will begin on 23 February and will last for 9 weeks, the 10th week will be an exam.

Click for more information and an application form

Valentine's weekend in Manchester: Spoil your loved one

Valentine's Day is this Sunday, 14th February and restaurants across the city are takings bookings for their Valentine's Menu. Harvey Nichol's special menu for the excellent Second Floor Restaurant caught our eye, in particular and here's a suggestion of a way to spend the weekend.

Firstly, tell your loved one they are busy all weekend and book a hotel room in town and get tickets for the following:

Friday: The Bridgewater Hall will be filled with love songs from the musicals on 12th February
Saturday: Dance away Saturday night at South Nightclub where Clint Boon and Mat Horne will be filling the dance floor
Sunday: What better way to start a lazy Sunday than Breakfast at the Cornerhouse and then watch a special screening of Breakfast at Tiffany's?