World’s Best Convention Centre. The Board of Directors of the International Association of Congress Centres (AIPC) has announced that the Royal College of Physicians in London UK has been identified as the winner of the 2012 Apex Award for “World’s Best Convention Centre” which was presented at the 2012 AIPC Annual Conference in Amsterdam this week. The Award was made from a group of 18 finalists who had qualified for the competition by achieving a high level of client testimonials to serve as a basis for an independent evaluation and analysis by the international research firm Ipsos.
“We are very pleased to be recognizing the Royal College of Physicians for this honor in what has been a pivotal year for the Apex Award” said AIPC President Edgar Hirt. “They have achieved this distinction in a process that now requires even higher levels of client endorsement than ever before, and are a facility with a very long and proud history which is now reflected one of London’s most distinctive and iconic Grade 1 listed buildings, overlooking the famous Regent’s Park. This history has clearly paid off in terms of their development of superb facility management and customer service skills”.
“The AIPC Apex award is one of the most prestigious titles in the world, and to secure it we have had to prove that we are competitive in every respect with some of the most successful venues in the world,” said Clive Ostler, the RCP’s General Manager, Marketing & Facilities: “The defining factor is customer feedback, and clearly the detailed comments of our own clients gave us the edge”.
The AIPC Apex Award is based on an extensive analysis of customer input via detailed surveys and reflects an unbiased picture of a centre’s performance as seen through the eyes of its customers. The analysis covers a range of categories including facilities, project management, customer relations, catering, creativity and technology.
“The Apex Award evaluation process is an extensive one that is able to identify the distinctions that separate even the highest performing centres”, said Hirt. “With almost 1,000 client assessments this year, we have also been able to clearly distinguish the factors that are generally most important to clients in their determination of centre performance, which gives our members and additional insight to drive performance”.
The AIPC Board also recognized three runners-up to this year’s award; the Belfast Waterfront, The Convention Centre Dublin and the Orange County Convention Center, Orlando. Begun in 2000, the AIPC Apex Award is now the pre-eminent award for the international convention centres represented in AIPC.
AIPC is a professional, non-profit association representing a global network of 173 leading centres in 54 countries with the active involvement of more than 750 management-level professionals. It is committed to encouraging and recognizing excellence in convention center management.
