Day delegate rates in the UK reached their highest rates in
the last 10 years in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to the
latest VenueVerdict research from BVA BDRC.
And rate rises outside London have outstripped those in the capital in the last three years, with prices in the north west showing
the highest increase when measured against the same quarter in 2019.
The north west has seen a 39 per cent rise in rates since 2019 to reach £48.59, while the provinces as a
whole were up 28 per cent to £45.46. London grew by 25 per cent to reach
£83.67, with the UK overall seeing a 27 per cent increase to £53.96.
When compared to 2021, London led growth with a 20 per cent
rise in quoted day delegate rates, with the provinces up by 16 per cent,
resulting in a UK-wide increase of 18 per cent. The north west again saw the highest
rise, up 24 per cent.
Louise Eccleston, client services director, BVA BDRC, said:
“The ability to pass on costs to customers has been a great relief to the
sector, which, as in the wider hospitality sector, has been suffering under
increased costs across operations, most notably in energy and staffing.
As the market stabilises this year, customer experience will
become more important. BVA BDRC reported that UK venue performance showed
different trends for sales and on site experience.
For sales, VenueVerdict’s sales enquiry performance UK
industry average reached 70 per cent YTD 2019, falling to 50 per cent in the
fourth quarter, 2021. There was improvement during last year, with Q4 2022 average
at 67, almost back to 2019 levels.
However the event planner feedback module of VenueVerdict
reported an all time low in Q4 2021 UK National average Net Promoter Score
(NPS) of 44, dropping 25 points from the peak in Q2 2019. Last year was showing
a steady increase in NPS, moving back into mid-50s, before falling back again
to 48 in the fourth quarter.
Fiona Von Hinten, associate director, BVA BDRC, said:
“Suppliers will need to step up their customer experience to win business in
what will be an increasingly competitive market.
“In sales, there is still some way to go to meet 2019
levels, but the scores are moving in the right direction. More worrying is the
drop off in net promoter score from event planner feedback, which has been
heading back downwards after a slight recovery last year.”
Event planners also reported a drop in three of the four key
performance indicators, after a peak in June.
Alasdair Cornwell, associate director, BVA BDRC, said:
“Value for money has remained fairly static and very low throughout the year,
decreasing from June, which could continue to reflect the pressure and economic
uncertainty in the country.
“Given the increase seen in quoted delegate day rates, it is
now more important than ever to make packages more appealing and add value, in
order to see a positive impact on the value for money perception.”
The feedback on the customer journey from event planners
showed enquiry handling, pre-event communication and understanding priorities continuing
to improve over the course of the year.
Anubhuti Manglik, client services manager, BVA BDRC, said:
“The steady increases across the three metrics suggest that the process is
improving and returning to pre-pandemic levels. Meeting and greeting also
showed a good improvement from January to September, with a lower score in May,
August, October and December, although all scores remained lower than in 2019.”
Eccleston concluded: “As expected, the middle of the year
was strong, but wider economic pressures took their toll on the end-of-year
party season, which was also hindered by widespread rail strikes.
“Going into 2023, customer experience and value for money
must be a priority for the sector. There are hopes that inflation will start to
fade and the worst forecasts of recession will not be realised, but with much
of the pent-up demand now released, we expect to see a focus on quality over
quantity when attending events.”
