The greatest travel and hospitality programmes in Rugby World Cup history
Background
In 2015 Rugby World Cup returned to England, the home of Rugby. The teams from 20 nations, comprising more than 900 players and coaching staff, played 48 matches at 13 venues across England and Wales. With an estimated 400,000 international visitors and more than 2.3 million tickets on sale this tournament was the biggest ever Rugby World Cup.
We had previously delivered highly successful, award winning programmes for Rugby World Cup in France in 2007 and New Zealand in 2011. In 2010, we had been awarded the exclusive Travel and Hospitality programme rights for Rugby World Cup 2015 in England and Rugby World Cup 2019 in Japan.
These rights gave us the exclusive right to design, market, sell and operate the travel and hospitality programmes for Rugby World Cup. Our strategy in 2015 was quite simply to deliver the biggest and best travel and hospitality programmes for any Rugby World Cup, ever.
Our Role
Our first step was to adopt the Rugby World Cup branding in its entirety in order to solidify our position as the supplier of a unique premium product.
We undertook research into the market and then built packages designed to appeal to corporate clients and high net worth personal purchasers.
We widely promoted the programme as part of a two and a half year marketing campaign that carefully matched our segmented audience against relevant package type. Our in-house sales team focussed on converting leads generated by the marketing activity and our database of more than 100,000 contacts.
Our operations team worked closely with the tournament’s organising committee to deliver a seamless hospitality service consistent with Rugby World Cup’s values and standards.
This work included building Twickenham Pavilion, a showpiece hospitality suite capable of holding 3,000 guests at each match played at Twickenham Stadium for the duration of the tournament.
The Twickenham Pavilion was located adjacent to Twickenham Stadium, and hosted over 3,000 hospitality guests
The Twickenham Pavilion was the show piece Rugby World Cup 2015 hospitality experience
The Pavilion provided unparalleled access to unique Rugby World Cup 2015 entertainment, with a vibrant and interactive atmosphere
Catering during Rugby World Cup 2015 was available in a variety of formats, with four course fine dining in the Webb Ellis Suites
Hospitality guests received exclusive access to the ultimate prize in Rugby as well as famous Rugby personalities
The restaurant in the Pavilion offered perfect views of Twickenham Stadium
The interior of the Pavilion was unlike anything ever seen at Rugby World Cup hospitality
Informal dining and seating was available to all Pavilion guests
The travel and hospitality programmes adopted the event look and feel as well as the official Rugby World Cup 2015 logo
Webb Ellis guests were hosted yards away from their Category A match seats
The Webb Ellis Suites were private chalet style hospitality suites for a minimum of 30 VIP guests
Webb Ellis guests were hosted yards away from their Category A match seats
The Webb Ellis Suites were located in prime position at Twickenham - adjacent to the iconic Twickenham stadium West Stand
Sumptuous catering was provided by 15 appointed caterers that our operations team appointed and managed
Consistent branding of the event was rolled out across the entire Tournament, including the stadiums themselves
Hosting and service teams were managed and briefed by our experienced operations and guest experience teams
Champions Park was a temporary structure located in the North Car park at Twickenham, hosting 1,800 guests per match
of revenue through direct sales
Results
Twickenham stadium was the most important venue for the tournament as it was scheduled to host the majority of the high profile matches and the Final itself.
We designed and built a total of seven hospitality areas at Twickenham, including three temporary structures located adjacent to the stadium.
We experienced unprecedented demand for our range of packages, making the tournament the most commercially successful hospitality programme in Rugby World Cup history. The success of the hospitality programme was also recognised by the Ticketing Technology Awards who awarded the programme the best Premium / VIP Ticketing Award at the annual Ticketing Technology Awards.
in online ecommerce sales
in travel and hospitality sales revenue
clients and guests
“Fantastic operation, seamless, incredible, well worth every penny”
“The company, hospitality, other guests and overall experience were all superb”
“One of the best experiences of my life”