NEC Group has appointed GVA to provide leasing advice and consultancy as part of its strategy to create leading business, leisure and entertainment destinations. The UK’s leading live events business is expanding activities across its NEC campus and city centre venues – both based in the West Midlands – after investing in facilities and making increased use of customer analytics.
Following a competitive pitch, GVA’s retail, leisure and hotels team will act on three of NEC Group’s venues: the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in Solihull; Birmingham city centre’s International Convention Centre (ICC) and Arena Birmingham.
GVA will be advising NEC Group on maximising opportunities from available leisure and hospitality space. GVA’s industrial and logistics team will also provide leasing advice on a number of warehouse units on the NEC site, which for the first time will be opened up to third party occupiers.
The NEC campus now attracts over seven and a half million visitors annually to the NEC, Genting Arena (soon to be Resorts World Arena), Vox conference centre and Resorts World Birmingham. This number is set to grow as the site’s first permanent attraction – The Bear Grylls Adventure – opens (soft launch earlier this month) and a new hotel – The Moxy – opens in 2019, alongside a £4.5m external facelift for the iconic exhibition centre and an investment of 185 high-spec digital screens. Meanwhile, city-centre developments include the successful opening earlier this summer of LEGOLAND Discovery Centre.
Andy Cole, NEC Group’s revenue development director, said:
“We recognise both retailers and food and beverage outlets are looking to the experiential market to drive sales. All our venues are well-placed with a highly-understood and targetable demographic.
“We made the decision to convert traditional ancillary space into retail and F&B opportunity after studying customer data. As our latest company results demonstrate, we are attracting increasing visitors each year reflecting the highly-appealing content hosted by our exhibitions, conferences, live events and attractions. We’re delighted to be working with GVA to support us on this strategy.”
Richard Jones, GVA, said:
“NEC Group is a well-known and widely regarded institution, both in the Midlands and beyond which makes a significant contribution to the regional economy each year.
“The retail and leisure market is complex and constantly evolving with many new and diverse entrants entering the market place. Consumers are no longer satisfied with the traditional retail and leisure experiences with a trend towards operators who are able to offer something different with high levels of consumer engagement.
“NEC Group is well ahead of many of its peers in creating these experiential environments, utilising their available spaces to offer something different to the end user.
“We are the only agency in the region that can provide the service lines to fulfil this requirement from one office and our remit will help to ensure that NEC Group is capitalising on the retail and leisure amenities across its v