SECC Launch New Website

The Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre (SECC) has relaunched its website and is fixing its prices at the exchange rate from the day contracts are signed to attract buyers from North America and Europe.

The price guarantee will allow buyers to take advantage of the sterling's devaluation, which has made the venue 25% cheaper for international buyers than it was two years ago, the SECC claims.

SECC director of sales Ben Goedegebuure said: "By guaranteeing our prices at the exchange rate for the date from when a contract is signed by the organiser we are able to pass on unparalleled savings and take the risk out of currency fluctuations for our clients."

The venue's website has been enhanced and new features include an interactive floor plan and 360-degree views of the venue.

Goedegebuure said: "For an event organiser this is immensely important as they can view the space to gauge a real understanding of what the potential is and what the SECC can offer." The centre has also been awarded the Gold Standard by the Green Business Tourism Scheme.

Courses Maintained by Fife Council

FIFE Council will continue to support eight local authority managed golf courses, including Dunnikier and Kinghorn and all clubs will get a share in £750,000 to improve facilities over the next five years. However, senior Council officials have not ruled out selling them in future, if this becomes a viable financial option.

A major review of Council-managed golf was carried out over the past year in a bid to address funding and maintenance issues with options including selling clubs or leasing them out.

However, councillors at Tuesday's housing and communities committee unanimously agreed to continue providing affordable, accessible, good quality golf courses.

The Council has consulted extensively with a range of individuals and groups, including the local golf clubs, season ticket holders and 'pay and play' golfers."We will maintain this dialogue as we review our golf pricing and investment policies and further consider the use of a trust to manage and operate the golf courses in the future".

Council-managed golf clubs in Fife are - Auchterderran, Dora, Dunnikier, Glenrothes, Kinghorn, Lochore Meadows and Scoonie. The Council also owns the golf courses at Leven Links and Tulliallan which are leased to the in-situ clubs and the St Andrews Links which is managed by the St Andrews Links Trust. The golf courses at Falkland and Anstruther are held under Common Good arrangements.

Full article from Fife Today

Local Events The Way Forward?

As Homecoming Scotland 2009 still creates debate in the industry about its impacts a local music festival this weekend is apparently having direct economic impacts.According the Press and Journal, Montrose in Anugus is bracing itself for an influx of thousands of music fans when it holds its second annual festival this weekend. The Montrose Music Festival will officially open tonight with a concert by Scottish band Deacon Blue and with more than 70 free gigs over the course of the weekend, the event has doubled in size since last year.

In 2008 more than 5,000 people from across the country were drawn to the town to hear artists from a variety of musical genres, including rock, indie, funk, folk and jazz. An organiser was quoted as saying, "There has been a lot of interest in the town’s hotels and bed and breakfasts, as well as in the festival’s official campsite, which is a good indicator of how popular it will be."

Whilst it may be argued that this is the very sort of event that should have benefited from the Homecoming umberella, it clearly hasn't embraced the branding. It however shouldn't distract from the point that it is these the localised events with local roots and clear localised impacts that have the best chance of longevity and buy in. They also have the potnential to achieve the sustainability that is required.

The free gigs will start on Saturday at 10.30am with a series of open-air performances on the town’s High Street, which will continue until 5.30pm.

http://www.montrosemusicfestival.co.uk/

New Upgrades to Online Booking Engine

Market-leading booking technology company Bookassist have announced a series of upgrades to the Bookassist system.
Listen to customers with Web 2.0 reviews integration for your website

• Automatically gather reviews through the booking engine, and manage and respond to those reviews directly in the hotel administration system which allows hotels to read, activate or deactivate, publish and answer their guest comments.
• It also allows publishing of positive guest comments on the website to increase sales.
• Show guests who have had issues that hotels care about their custom by responding quickly and actioning change.
  Demonstrate to potential guests through your reviews and comments that you are a customer-oriented hotel

Connected Packages for Easier Management

Bookassist now allows to link the pricing in one package or room type with another so that the accommodation provider can quickly alter many rates throughout the system by operating from a smaller number of master rates.

Other upgrades to the admin side include a Manage By Year Upgrade - allowing simple but powerful mangement and assessment of your year ahead online; Bookassist has long offered the potential to upsell and promote through add-ons and the new upgrade brings the capability to add photographs to add-ons and to group them in more convenient ways to help customers identify them more easily and to add to their on-screen appeal.

Contact Bookassist on scotland@bookassist.com for more information on how to unlock the power of your website.

Gordon Sherry Comeback

Good to see that Gordon Sherry, the wonder kid of Ayrshire, indeed Scottish, golf in the early 1990s, is hitting the comeback trail at the age of 35.
The big man has made the cut after a second round, one-over-par 73 in the Northern Open at Spey Valley, Aviemore.
Although he was 11 shots off the pace set by Craig Lee on four-under-par 140, and said: "I need to keep working hard but at the moment I'm just glad to be back."
Sherry was four under after five holes of his second round but fell back with two bogeys and then a triple bogey at the ninth where he incurred a two-shot penalty for playing a wrong ball.

The Buchan Quine is Fine for Trump

Much publicity about the latest Donald Trump appointment in the North East. Trawling through the articles on the "Buchan Quine", The Aberdeen Evening Express covered it best and with a more detailed local angle leading with

"AN ABERDEEN museum boss has landed the key job of running Donald Trump’s £1bn Balmedie golf resort. Sarah Malone, 34, was today announced as executive vice-president of Trump International Golf Links Scotland. And she vowed to play her part in delivering a project that would “floodlight” the North-east."

The full article can be read on the Evening Express site

New Web Servers at The Edge

We are pleased to announce that on Sunday 24rd May 2009 we successfully completed the migration of our main hosting services to a new network with brand new hardware.

We have invested in the new network with brand new Dell servers and Cisco network equipment. All servers are new state-of-the-art machines and much more powerful than any we have used before. This means your hosting services will be faster than ever and equipped to move forward for the future.

We have invested heavily in this move to provide you with the best available equipment and network connections to move forward into the future with.