Conference Aston will welcome thousands of students this summer

7th Feb 2011

Thousands of students will be flooding into Birmingham this summer as Conference Aston celebrates its busiest year ever of summer schools.

Students from as far afield as Russia, Japan, France, Italy and Portugal will be enjoying life in the UK’s second city from a base on the Aston University campus.
Conference Aston head of sales and marketing Christine Page said the campus would play host to more than 680 students per night in July with a further 400 per night in August, a total of 33,000 bed nights.

“We’ve seen a massive increase in demand from summer school organisers who have chosen Birmingham because of the central location and its easy access to London and other tourist hot spots,” she said.
“The students love the vibrant city centre, with great shopping and culture and the summer school organisers like the fact that the students can walk into the city centre in minutes.

“And because we offer a friendly, small campus environment with onsite facilities for accommodation, eating and meeting space it is ideal for the Aston University led summer schools covering anything from school pupils sampling university life to international summer schools for those a little older.”
The Conference Aston sales team has already secured bookings for 2012/13 and expect the market to grow significantly over the next three years.
“There is a substantial refurbishment and reinvestment programme ongoing on campus at the moment which will massively increase the number of beds we have to offer over the next four years,” said Christine.

“And this programme will not only bring the total number of beds available up to 1000 per night, it will also increase the quality of that accommodation, which can only improve the prospect of further growth in campus conferencing.

“We anticipate this sector is going to be a significant growth market for us as organisations affected by the current economic environment look for more cost effective ways to hold conferences, reducing the delegate rate without compromising on quality.”
Conference Aston welcomes more than 54,000 people a year to Birmingham for training, residential conferences, for weddings and to stay in its high quality hotel facilities and on site campus accommodation.

It sits at the heart of Aston University, which is a long established research-led university known for its world-class teaching quality and strong links to industry, government and commerce.