Quality assurance program on track for BestCities members
- MICEBTN archive stories issue 27
- Friday, 09 February 2007
THE BESTCITIES Global Alliance — which includes Singapore, Dubai, Cape Town and Melbourne among its members —has launched its final phase towards achieving a Global Certification Program for convention bureau service standards.
The alliance partners have completed an internal audit training program and jointly agreed and signed the alliance’s Quality Policy.
The purpose of the internal audit program is to train 10 members of the alliance to monitor the effectiveness of the Quality Management System and improve the quality and performance of convention bureaux service standards.
The alliance’s primary goal in establishing this certification process is to be the only consortium of convention bureaux offering the world’s state-of-the-art service experience to the global meetings industry.
Throughout the past year, the BestCities Global Alliance has been working closely with Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance, Ltd. (LRQA) and the Mohamed Al Geziry Consultancy (MAGC) to develop and implement its certification program.
The program is designed to quantify to meeting planners each convention bureau’s quality of service and assets of value. Together, BestCities Global Alliance, MAGC, which specialises in providing operational direction to the hospitality, leisure and the tourism industry, and LRQA, which focuses on developing quality assurance systems, have put in place the first worldwide certification programme for convention bureau organisations.
“The BestCities Global Alliance is winning increasing recognition throughout the industry because of our members' strong dedication to client service standards,” said Lisa Klint, general manager, BestCities Global Alliance.
“Putting an official Quality Management System and process into place demonstrates our commitment to ensuring a consistent level of service to conventions held at all of our partner’s global destinations.” The final Certification Audit by LRQA will be scheduled between 4-6 months after a sufficient number of the internal audits have taken place amongst all eight BestCities bureaux.
The new certification process will become a mandatory step in qualifying for membership in the BestCities Global Alliance; a process that includes a stringent peer-review of the destination’s ability to offer a superior international meeting experience, and a bureau’s ability to ensure and maintain a consistent level of quality and service excellence.
“The completion of this new certification process assures clients that when they choose BestCities, they receive the highest level of professionalism and commitment to customer service in the meetings industry,” Klint said.
Mike Williams, chairman of BestCities Global Alliance, added: “Fulfilment of the client’s business and personal needs is essential to the way we work. Regular client feedback is analysed and considered, providing us with a unique insight into the specific needs of the clients we are serving”.
The BestCities Global Alliance was founded in 2000 and is the world’s first and only convention bureau alliance of destination marketing and sales organisations. The eight member cities are Cape Town, Copenhagen, Dubai, Edinburgh, Melbourne, San Juan, Singapore and Vancouver.
