Meeting Clooney a perk of job for driven EICC chief
Go-ahead chief executive wants conference centre to play star role
MEETING George Clooney was all in a day’s work for Marshall Dallas, chief executive of Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC).
When the Oscar-winning actor, philanthropist and director came to Edinburgh last November in a media frenzy, his destination was the EICC, which was hosting the UK’s largest ever business dinner for 2,000 guests attending the Scottish Business Awards.
“He was a very charming individual and, I thought, a highly intelligent man,” said Mr Dallas, who welcomed Mr Clooney before he went on stage as keynote speaker. “He was keen to talk about his charity more than anything else and not at all as you’d expect of an A-listed Hollywood star.”
In January, EICC also hosted the Terminator star and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in ‘An Experience with…’ event.
“One of the things we’ve tried to do from a sales perspective it to be far more diverse in the type of business that we take,” Mr Dallas said.
“We’ve hosted Arnold Schwarzenegger, who came to the EICC to be interviewed live on stage. We found there was a huge appetite for that, because 1,200 seats were sold for the event.”
The ability to host events of this scale has been made possible by the £35 million expansion of the EICC, with the addition of the 2,000 sq ft Lennox Suite, which was officially opened by HRH The Princess Royal last January. The suite features a hall-wide moving floor system – the first of its kind at the time – allowing a space the size of four tennis courts to be transformed into tiered theatre and Marshall Dallas spent 24 years in the hotel industry and five years in private healthcare before joining EICC as chief executive in 2014. He lives with his wife and two children in Gargunnock, near Stirling. His favourite pursuits include open water swimming in the local lochs of the Trossachs. arena set-ups in a fraction of the time required in conventional halls.
“The expansion of the EICC, which been opened for almost three years now, allows us much more flexibility and puts us on a world stage,” Mr Dallas said. “In the original building we also have the Pentland Suite that can seat up to 1,200 guests, and the Cromdale suite that can seat up to 900 dinner guests.”
The increased capacity has opened the door to big association conferences and EICC is set to double its business in this area during 2016. Two recent wins – including a two-year deal to host the 2020 and 2024 conferences for the Association of Insurance & Risk Managers – are expected to inject about £6m into the local economy.
Last year EICC reported a record year, with sales growth of 30 per cent for 2014. When it reports its results for 2015 next month, Mr Dallas expects further progress, including a £1m reduction in the £1.5m losses forecast by auditors.
“We’re also looking for a further 15 per cent revenue growth in 2015,” Mr Dallas added. “So we’ve got very aggressive sales targets, but these are more than achievable.”
A key factor in the turnaround has involved dividing the sales team into distinct groups covering corporate and association business, and introducing a more transparent pricing structure.
“So the prices we advertise are the prices you get, with no hidden costs,” he said.
Born in Dumfries in 1965, Mr Dallas joined Trusthouse Forte as an intern at the age of 19, working at the Cavendish, Waldorf and Kensington Close hotels in London. Following a move into food and beverage management with Holiday Inn, he helped win the group’s first Michelin star before moving to California to open a new portfolio hotel.
“I was given a six-month secondment out there as a thank you from the chief executive,” he said.
After returning from the US, he joined Gleneagles Hotel in 1991 as food and beverage manager, before stints at Queens Moat House then Macdonald Hotels, where he looked after the Roxburghe and Holyrood Hotels in Edinburgh.
“So I had 365 bedrooms in Edinburgh,” Mr Dallas said. “I’ve always had a very solid hotel experience. I’ve been very fortunate in my career that I’ve worked for some great organisations.”
In a move from ‘hospitality into hospitals’, Mr Dallas then ran Glasgow’s private Nuffield Hospital for five years, before taking up his current post as EICC chief executive in September 2014.
Since it was opened in 1995 by City of Edinburgh Council – who operate the venue as an arm’s length commercial venture – EICC has helped deliver around £500m to the local economy while hosting more than one million delegates and 3,000 conferences.
Mr Dallas believes Edinburgh itself has been key to this success. “I think Edinburgh as a city has really come on leaps and bounds over the last 10 years,” he said. “I think its infrastructure is much better than ever before. For example Edinburgh Airport is really significant to us with all the new routes that are coming into Edinburgh. There’s a far greater choice of transport with buses and trams. And we’ve got some really exciting hotel brands that have come to the city.”
While Edinburgh is the highest ranked UK conference destination outside London, competition is fierce and Mr Dallas is not complacent.
His vision includes creating a hub of excellence with training and development at its core. The venue has around 48 full-time staff, but numbers can grow to 10 times that during big events.
“I’m really keen from a people perspective that we have career potential for all our people in the centre. My main objective is to enhance what we’ve already got and really grow the economic impact that EICC brings to the city.”