The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Rooms in demand, say city hoteliers
including efficiency and management.
Also newfor this year is a series of visitor trails, to help people get around the event, being held in the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre on Wednesday and Thursday next week.
All-energy project director Judith Patten said: “Registrations are coming in thick and fast and there is every expectation we will match or surpass the figures from last year.
“We have lined up the best plenary session we have ever had. There are some incredible names; it really is a who’s who of renewable energy.”
Last year, more than 8,000 people from 50 countries attended the annual two-day conference and exhibition, which was launched in 2001, up from 7,000 in 2010.
Speakers will include Energy Minister Charles Hendry, Keith Anderson, the chief corporate officer of Scottish Power; senior executives from Gamesa and the Crown Estate and F i r s t Mi n i s t e r Ale x Salmond.
Offshore wind will be a big focus for the event, with an estimated 22 hours of conference and seminar devoted to the subject.
Wave and tidal power will also feature, in addition to carbon-capture and storage, grid, energy policy, finance, and public perception of marine renewables.
On day two, Marine En- ergy in Far Peripheral and Island Communities is holding a workshop designed to help people learn about policy and business resources available in the emerging marine-renewables sector.
There will also be a networking evening on Wednesday. Aberdeen hotels are close to capacity for this year’s All-energy, adding to an already buoyant market, hoteliers in the city say.
Stephen Gow, chairman of Aberdeen City and Shire Hotels Association and general manager of Thistle Aberdeen Altens, said it had now become normal for the city tobe booked out for All-energy, a mark of the event’s success.
But he added: “The city is already busy anyway.”
He said the past six to eight months and more had consistently seen hotel rooms in demand on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
“It is still a little quieter at weekends, but there is no doubt the city is good Tuesdays and Wednesdays,” he said. “There is confidence in the energy sector at the moment with lots of new projects driving forward.”
According to hotel booking website Laterooms yesterday, the nearest available hotel for next Tuesday and Wednesday nights wereinpeterheadandbanchory.