Kimberley Conference & Athlete Training Centre Named #1 State-of-the-Art Conference Venue by Alberta Venture Magazine

Ask anyone in the Kootenays what is happening in Kimberley and they will tell you about the Conference & Athlete Training Centre, and within a few short months, this will be the answer of meeting planners everywhere! With construction of the Centre well underway, the City of Kimberley has begun a preliminary marketing strategy aimed at building awareness of the facility and positioning it within the marketplace as a holistic approach to corporate travel. As more businesses move towards triple bottom-line accounting practices, our facility needs to provide potential users with cause and effect measures that support travel decisions based on economic, social and environmental impacts.

The marketing efforts have focused on positioning the Centre as a fully accessible, first class space that blends the intensities of corporate and high performance sport cultures with the calming and recreational culture of true mountain lifestyle. Conference planners will be able to choose just how green they want to make their event. From choosing not to use table clothes, to adding a “green fee” to the registration amount which will go to a local green or carbon offsetting initiative; the Kimberley Conference & Athlete Training Centre will be a leader in green conferences.

This unique stance has already gained the Centre accolades in Alberta Venture Magazine’s Meeting & Convention Planning Guide 2010, as the #1 state-of-the-art conference venue and as a leader in the future of meeting business in Western Canada. “The facility’s attention to accessibility and environment has positioned it ahead of the Edmonton, Vancouver West and Regina centres as an innovator in managed travel”, said Mayor Jim Ogilvie. “Gaining media coverage like this before our facility is completely constructed is priceless, and says a lot about what the City has been doing to position the Centre within the Market place”.

Although there are synergies between the Conference and Athlete Training Centres, the facilities are being marketed separately. The clients for the two facilities and their needs are extremely different as is the message and medium used to reach the different audiences. To date the City of Kimberley has placed the following advertisements featuring the Conference Centre.

• We have done a full page in Go Kimberley. As the largest facility in the region we feel that this is a great piece for us to be in. We will be doing another full page in the next addition as well.
• We have done a full page in Meeting Places Alberta
• We have done a 1/6th page with advertorial in Invest BC. The distribution of this magazine with it being the Olympic year made this a positive choice.
• We have placed a 1/3 page ad in Alberta Venture Meeting and Convention planning Guide. We also have a descriptive listing of our property and were highlighted in an editorial describing where the conference industry is going as far as design and multiple-use and what makes facilities, such as ours, stand out amongst existing facilities in Alberta and BC.
• We have purchased a full page in the coming issue of Kootenay Business Magazine which will have a story focusing on the Conference and Athlete Training Centre.

The City continues to work with a firm to develop a comprehensive and targeted marketing strategy that will establish a well manicured and secure piece of the managed travel market share for the Kimberley Conference & Athlete Training Centre. For more information on the Centre contact the City of Kimberley at info@city.kimberley.bc.ca or by phone 250-427-5311. Log on to the Alberta Venture web site to read the article on Kimberley http://albertaventure.com/2010/03/meet-me-in/?year=2010