This group’s diverse range of hotels and meeting venues make it a good choice for events, says Liat Clark.
Who are they?
A collection of four- and five-star historical country mansions and all-purpose meeting venues located across the UK.
Where in the UK?
The De Vere Group started out as a brewing company before focusing its operations on its fitness centres (Greens) and hotel business from the 1990s. The group is made up of sub-sectors including 11 De Vere Hotels, 33 De Vere Venues, 26 Village hotels and four Luxury Lodges.
Nick Read, marketing director at De Vere, says: “Each are distinct propositions – we have good coverage across the UK so someone can go from the Village in Swansea to a Venue in Daventry.”
Village hotels tend to be on city outskirts or off main arteries into town, covering everywhere from Leeds and Newcastle to Cardiff and Swindon. De Vere Hotels are a mixture of city-centre properties (Brighton, Bournemouth and Southampton) and country estates roughly half an hour’s drive from town (for example, Mottram Hall near Manchester and Slaley Hall near Newcastle). There are five De Vere Venues in the capital, in London Bridge, Holborn, Portland Place, Canary Wharf and Greenwich, the last of which has guestrooms.
What are they like?
Rather confusingly, most De Vere Venues do in fact have rooms for the night (26 out of 33), while all of the hotels have meeting space. Even so, there is no crossover between the two brands and they are considered entirely separate.
“Venues are dedicated meeting and training conference centres, so in terms of layout they are probably more spacious with breakout and coffee areas,” Read says. “They are designed for groups. You’d go to the hotels for a longer destination stay – corporate golf, directors’ meetings or team away-days.” Many have championship golf courses and spas, while most organise activities including sailing, horse riding, fishing and quad biking.
Village properties are suited to short work trips rather than teambuilding days. “They are for people staying away on business for one or two nights,” Read says. All Villages also have health clubs and pools.
Most De Vere Hotels and Venues are in historical buildings, such as the iconic Victorian-era Grand hotel on Brighton seafront, or the 18th-century Mottram Hall, set in 109 hectares of parkland with its own
FA-accredited football pitch. Properties under the Village brand tend to be new-builds.
The group also partners with a number of non-De Vere properties to support customer demand in areas where it does not have many hotels or venues. “We have a big pipeline of business that we can’t accommodate in our own properties so we invite others to join as preferred partners,” Read says. De Vere then recommends them on a commission basis. There are “preferred partners” in Coventry, Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester, along with the Commonwealth private members’ club in London.
Are they for business travellers?
The brand you choose will depend on what you’re looking for. The locations, though never too far from a major city, are not great for central meetings, but for team days or training sessions, they are ideal. Venues are well kitted-out for the latter in terms of coffee lounges and in-room workspace. Free wired and wifi internet is offered across all properties.
Is there a loyalty scheme?
De Vere does not offer a loyalty scheme in the usual sense, but has developed the De Vere Club (thedevereclub.co.uk), whereby customers buy points redeemable for services across the group. You can buy 100 points for £295, which can be used to pay for a round of golf (the number of points needed at each club varies but you can expect to get 15-20 rounds with £295) or spa treatment.
“People have less time but they’re committed to expensive memberships at a gym or golf course,” Read says. “The scheme encourages people to buy points and be flexible when they redeem them, and carry them over at the end of the year. Traditionally, you tend to buy a golf membership at one club – ours can be used at all of our clubs. We have 15 golf courses around the UK and numerous gyms in our hotels.” Points can also be redeemed by members’ relatives.
Tell me the good news…
De Vere puts emphasis on delivering whatever is asked of it – within reason. For instance, Read says that at a recent training conference the client requested 100GB of wifi. “We don’t think: ‘Oh, we can’t facilitate that' – we go and hire a satellite truck to make sure we can do it,” he says.
A month ago, a new website grouping the brands together was introduced to make booking simpler. It allows users to search by location and brand, and to book guestrooms.
And the bad…
For group events, the company cannot be faulted for its spread of locations and leisure options, but it will never compete with city-centre chains for one-day or overnight business meetings. A car will also be necessary to reach many of them.
What’s more, the different categories can be confusing for a first-time booker. Add to this the fact that in recent years the company has rebranded a few properties, converting a number of Hotels and Venues into Villages, and a handful of Hotels into Venues, and the picture is further complicated. It has also dropped several properties from the portfolio, including in London and Birmingham.
Future plans
The group carries out ongoing refurbishments to its properties to maintain standards – meeting rooms at the Grand and Slaley Hall have been refreshed, and the meeting space at Cameron House at Loch Loman is being enlarged.
Where can I learn more?
The new booking engine at devere.co.uk makes it far easier to navigate room choices (previously, users were redirected to a map and had to click on individual properties to proceed). The Village brand has a separate website at village-hotels.co.uk
